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V
1o-<rT\
BOHN'S CLASSICAL LIBRARY.
DIOGENES LAERTIUS.
THE
LIVES AND OPINIONS
OF
EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BT
DIOGENES LAERTIUS.
LmsBALLY tba:nslated
By C. D. TONGE, B.A.
LONDON:
HENRY G. BOHN, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN.
MDCCOLIII.
LONDON ;
J. UADOON AND SOW, PRrNTSBS, CASTLB SiTRBBT, FIWSBITIY.
"^ UNIVERSITY O},
OF ""^
OXFORD «i
CONTENTS
Introduction
BOOK I.
PAOK.
Preface
Thales
Solon
Chtlo
PiTTACUS
Bias
Cleobultjs
Pertander .
Anacharsis, the Scythian
Myson
Epimenides
Pherecydes
3
14
23
32
35
38
41
43
46
49
60
53
BOOK IL
Anaximander
Anaximenes
57
57
VI
CONTENTS.
Abchelaus .
socbates
Zenophon .
jEschines
Abistippus .
Phcedo .
euclides
Stilpo .
Cbito
Simon .
Glauco
SlMIAS .
Cebes
Menedemus
PAOX.
62
63
75
79
81
96
97
100
103
104
104
105
105
105
BOOK III.
Plato
113
BOOK IV.
Speusippus
Xenocbates
POLEMO .
Gbates
Cbantob
Aboesilaus .
BlON
Lactdes
Cabneades
Clitomachds
152
154
158
160
161
163
171
176
177
179
OONTESHTS.
BOOK V.
PAOB.
Aristotle
• •
181
THEOPHRAflTUS
• • •
. 194
Strato
■ • •
202
Ltcon
• • •
. 205
Demetrius
• • •
209
Hebagudes •
• • •
. 218
yu
BOOK VI.
Aktisthenes
♦
217
Diogenes
• • •
. 224
MONIMUS
• • •
248
Onesicritus .
t • •
. 249
Crates .
• • •
249
Metroci.es .
• • •
. 253
HlPPARCHIA
• • •
254
Menippus
• • •
. 256
Mekedemus
• • •
BOOK VII.
257
Zeno
. • •
. 259
Artston .
• • ■
318
Herillus .
• . * *
. 320
DiONTSIUS
• • •
821
Clbantues .
. • •
. 322
Sph^.rus
«
» • •
. 826
Chrysippus .
» • •
. 327
VUl
CONTENTS.
BOOK VIII.
Pythagoras
Empedocles
Epichahmtjs
Archytas
Alcmjeon
HiPPASUS
Philolaus
EUDOXUS
PAQS.
338
359
308
369
371
371
372
372
BOOK IX.
Heraclitus
Xenophanes
Parmenides
Melissus
Zeno, the Eleatig
Leucippus .
Democritus
Protagoras .
Diogenes, of Apollonia
Anaxarchus
Pyrrho .
TiMON
376
382
384
386
386
388
390
397
400
400
402
420
/
/
BOOK X.
Epicurus
424
PEEFACE.
Diogenes, the author of the following work, was a native
(as is generally believed) of Laerte, in Cilicia, from whieb
circumstance he derived the cognomen of Laertius. Little is
known of him personally, nor is even the age in which he lived
very clearly ascertained. But as Plutarch, Sextus Empiricus,
and Satuminus are among the writers whom he quotes, he is
generally believed to have lived near the end of the second
century of our era : although some place him in the time
of Alexander Severus, and others as late as Constantine. . His
work consists of ten books, variously called : The Lives of
Philosophers, A History of Philosophy, and The Lives of
Sophists. From internal evidence (iii. 47, 29), we learn
that he wrote it for a noble lady (according to some,
Arria ; according to others, Julia, the Empress of Severus),
who occupied herself with the study of philosophy, and es-
pecially of Plato.
Diogenes Laertius divides the philosophy of the Greeks iftto
the Ionic, beginning with Anaximander, and ending with
Theophrastus (in which class, he includes the Socratic philo-
sophy and all its various ramifications) ; and the Italian,
beginning with Pythagoras, and ending with Epicurus, in
which he includes the Eleatics, as also Heraclitus and the
Sceptics. From the minute consideration which he devotes
to Epicurus and his system, it has been supposed that he
himself belonged to that school.
His work is the chief source of information we possess
2 PREFACE.
concerning the hi8tx>r7 of Greek philosophy, and .is the
foundation of nearly all the modem treatises on that suh-
ject ; some of the most important of which are little more
than translations or amplifications of it. It is valuahle,
as containing a copious collection of anecdotes illustratiye of
the life and manners of the Greeks ; but he has not always
been yery careful in his selection, and in some parts there
is a confusion in his statements that makes them scarcely
intelligible. These faults have led some critics to consider
the work as it now exists merely a mutilated abridgment of the
original. Breslseus, who in the thirteenth century, wrote a
Treatise on the Lives and Manners of the Philosophers,
quotes many anecdotes and sayings, which seem to be de-
rived from Diogenes, but which are not to be found in. our
present text ; whence Schneider concludes that he had a very
different and far more complete copy than has come down
to us.
The text used in the following translation is chiefly that of
Huebner, as published at Leipsic, a.d. 1828.
LIVES AND OPINIONS
ov
EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.'
BOOK I.
»
INTRODUCTION.
I. Some say that the study of philosophy originated with
the barbarians. In that among the Persians there existed
the Magi,* and among the Babylonians or Assyrians the
Chaldaei,! among the Indians the Gymnosophistae,! and among
the Celts and Gauls men who were called Druids § and
* " The religion of the ancient Persians was the worship of fire or of
the elements, in which fire was symbolical of the Deity. At a later
period, in the time of the Qreeks, the ancient worship was changed into
the adoration of the stars (Sabseism), especially of the sun and of the
morning star. This religion was distinguished by a simple and majestic
character. Its priests were called Magi" — T&MMmanii Mam/ital of the
Higtory of PKHwophy^ Jnlrod, § 70.
+ " The Chaldeans were devoted to the worship of the stars and to
astrology ; the nature of their climate and country disposing them to
it. The worship of the stars was rerived by them and widely dissenli-
nated even subsequently to the Christian era." — Ibid. § 71.
X " Cicero speaks of those who in India are accounted philosophers,
living naked and enduring the greatest severity of winter without be-
traying any feeling of pain, and displaying the same insensibility when
exposal to the flames." — Ttuc. QnuBst v. 27.
§ " The religion of the Britons was one of the most considerable
parts of their government, and the Druids who were their priests, pos-
sessed great authority among them. Besides ministering at the altar,
and directing all religious duties, they presided over the education of
youth ; they possessed both the civil and criminal jurisdiction, they
decided all controversies among states as well as among private persons,
and whoever refused to submit to their decree was exposed to the most
severe penalties. The sentence of excommunication was pronounced
B 2
4 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
§emnothei, as Aristotle relates in his book on Magic, and
Sotion in the twenty-third book of his Succession of Philoso-
phers. Besides those men there were the Phoenician Ochus,
the Thracian ZamoWs,* and the Libyan Atlas. For the
against him ; he was forbidden access to the sacrifices of public worship ;
he was debarred all intercourse with his fellow citizens even in the
common affairs of life : his company was universally shunned as profane
and dangerous, he was refused the protection of law, and deatii itself
became an acceptable relief from "Uie misery and infamy to which he
was exposed. Thus the bonds of government^ which were naturally
loose among that rude and turbulent people, were happily corroborated
by the terrors of their superstition.
** No species of superstition was ever more terrible than that of the
Druids ; besides the several penalties which it was in the power of the
ecclesiastics to inflict in this world, they inculcated the eternal trans-
migration of souls, and thereby extended their authority as far as the
fears of their timorous votaries. They practised their rites in dark
groves or other secret recesses, and in order to throw a greater mystery
over their religion, they communicated their doctrines only to the
initiated, and strictly forbade the committing of them to writing, lest
they should at any time be exposed to the examination of the profane
and vulgar. Human sacrifices were practised among them ; the spoils
of war were often devoted to their divinities, and they punished with
the severest tortures whoever dared to ' secrete any part of the con-
secrated offering. These treasures they kept secreted in woods and
forests, secured by no other guard than the terrrors of their religion ;
and their steady conquest over human avidity may be regarded as more
signal than their prompting men to the most extraordinary and most
violent efforts. No idolatrous worship ever attained such an ascendant
over mankind as that of the ancient Gkiuls and Britons. And the
Komans after their conquest, finding it impossible to reconcile those
nations to the laws and institutions of their masters while it maintained
its authority, were at last obliged to abolish it by penal statutes, a
violence which had never in any other instance been resorted to by
those tolerating conquerors." — Hume^a History of Englcmdf chap. 1. § 1.
* Zamolxis, or Ztdmoxis, so called from the bearnskin (^dX/ioc) in
which he was wrapped as soon as he was bom, was a Getan, and
a slave cf Pythagoras at Samos; having been emancipated by his
master, he travelled into Egypt ; and on his return to his own country
he introduced the ideas which he had acquired in his travels on the
subject of civilisation, religion, and the immortality of the soul. He
was made priest of the chief deity among the Qetas^ and was afterwards
himself worshipped as a divine person. He was said to have lived in a
subterraneous cavern for three years, and after that to have re-appeared
among his countrymen. Herodotus, however, who records these stories
(iv. 95), expresses his disbelief of them, placing him before the time of
Pythagoras by many years, and seems to incline to the belief that he
was an indigenous Getan deity.
INTRODUCTION. 5
Egyptians say that Vulcan was the son of Nilus, and that
he was the author of philosophy, in which those who were
especially eminent were called his priests and prophets.
II. From his age tp^that ef Alexander, king of the Mace-
donians were forty-eight thousand eight hundred and sixty-
three years, and during this time there were three hundred
and seventy-three eclipses of the sun, and eight hundred and
thirty-two eclipses of the moon.
Again, from the time of the Magi, the first of whom was
Zoroaster the Persian, to that of the fall of Troy, Hermodorus
the Platonic philosopher, in his treatise on Mathematics,
calculates that fifteen thousand years elapsed. But Xauthus
the Lydian says that the passage of the Hellespont hy
Xerxes took place six thousand years after the time of
Zoroaster,* and that after him there was a regular succession
* " The real time of Zoroaster is, as may be supposed, very \m-
certain, but he is said bj some eminent writers to have lived in
the time of Darius Hystaspes; though others, apparently on better
grounds, place him at a very far earlier date. He is not mentioned
by Herodotus at all. His native country too is very uncertaitL Some
writers, among whom sire Ctesias and Ammian, call him a Bactrian,
while Porphyry speaks of him as a Chaldasan, and Pliny as a native
of Proconnesus ;— Niebuhr considers him a purely mythical per-
Bonage. The great and fundamental article of the system (of the
Persian theology) was the celebrated doctrine of the two principles ;
a bold and injudicious attempt of Eastern philosophy to reconcile
the existence of moral and physical evil with the attributes of a benefi-
cent Creator and governor of the world. The first and original being,
in whom, or by whom the universe exists, is denominated, in the writ-
ings of Zoroaster, Time wUhoiU htmiida. .... From either the
blmd or the intelligent operation of this infinite Time, which bears but
too near an afiGmity to the Chaos of the Greeks, the two secondary but
active principles of the imiverse were from all eternity produced ;
Ormusd and Ahriman, each of them possessed of the powers of creation,
but each disposed by his invariable nature to exercise them with different
designs ; the principle of good is eternally absorbed in light, the prin-
ciple of evil is eternally buried in darkness. The wise benevolence of
Ormusd formed man capable of virtue, and abundantly provided his
fair habitation with the materials of happiness. By his vigilant provi-
dence the motion of the planets, the order of the seasons, and the
temperate mixture of the elements are preserved. But the maker of
Ahriman has long since pierced Ormuad^s Egg^ or in other words, has
violated the harmony of his works. Since that fatal irruption, the most
minute articles of good and evil are intimately intermingled and agitated
together; the rankest poisons' spring up among the most salutary
plants ; deluges, earthquakes, and confla^utions attest the conflict of
C LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHBBS.
of Magi under tlie names of Ostanes and Astrampsychos and
Gobryas and Fazatas, until the destruction of the Persian
empire by Alexander.
III. But those who say this, ignorantly impute to the
barbarians the merits of the Greeks, from whom not only
all philosophy, but even the whole human race in reality
originated. For Musaeus was bom among the Athenians,
and Linus among the Thebans ; and they say that the former,
who was the son of Eumolpus, was the first person who taught
the system of the genealogy of the gods, and who invented
the spheres ; and that he taught that all things originated
in one thing, and when dissolved retmued to that same thing;
and that he died at Phalerum, and that this epitaph was
inscribed on his tomb : —
Phalerum's soil beneath this tomb contains
MuBseus dead, Eumolpus' darling son.
And it is from the father of Musaeus that the family called
EumolpidsB among the Athenians derive their name. They
say too that Linus was the son of Mercury and the Muse
Urania; and that he invented a system of Cosmogony, and
of the motions of the sun and moon, and of the genera-
tion of animals and fruits; and the following is the be-
ginning of his poem.
There was a time when all the present world
Uprose at once.
From w^hich Anaxagprais derived his theory, when he said that
nature, and the little world of man is perpetually shaken by yice and
misfortune. While the rest of mankind are led away captives in the
chains of their infernal enemy, the faithful Persian alone reserves his
religious adoration for his friend and protector Ormusd, and fights
under his banner of light, in the full confidence that he shall, in the
last day, share the glory of his triumph. At that decisive period, the
enlightened wisdom of goodness will render the power of Ormusd
superior to the furious malice of his rival ; Ahriman and his followers,
disarmed and subdued, will sink into their native darkness, and virtue
will maintain the eternal peace and harmony of the universe. . . .
. . As a legislator, Zoroaster '' discovered a liberal concern for the
public and private happiness seldom to be foimd among the visionary
schemes of superstition. Fasting and celibacy, the common means of
purchasing the divine favour, he condemns with abhorrence, as a
criminal rejection of the best gifts of Providence."— (?i66o», Decline
and Fall of the Bomom Empire, c viii
INTRODUCTION. 7
all things had been produced at the same time, and that, then
intellect bad come and arranged them all in order.
They say, moreover, that Linus died in Euboea, having been
shot with an arrow by Apollo, and that this epitaph was set
over him : —
The Theban Linus sleeps beneath this ground,
Urania's son with fairest gai4ands crown'd.
IV. And thus did philosophy arise among the Greeks, and
indeed its very name shows that it has no connection with the
barbarians. But those who attribute its origin to them, intro-
duce Orpheus the Thracian, and say that he was a philosopher,
and the most ancient one of all. But if one ought to call a
man who has said such things about the gods as he has said, a
philosopher, I do not know what name one ought to give to
him who has not scrupled to attribute all sorts of human feel-
ings to the gods, and even such discreditable actions as are but
raroly spoken of among men ; and tradition relates that he
was murdered by women ; * but there is an inscription at Dium
in Macedonia, saying that he was killed by lightning, and it
runs thus : —
Here the bard buried by the Muses lies,
The Thracian Orpheus of the golden lyre ;
Whom mighty Jove, the Sovereign of the skies.
Removed from earth by his dread lightning's fire.
y. But they who say that philosophy had its rise among
the barbarians, give also an account of the different systems
prevailing among the various tribes. And they say that the
Gymnosophists and the Druids philosophize, delivering their
apophthegmns in enigmatical language, bidding men worship
the gods and do no evil, and practise manly virtue.
♦ This IB the accoxmt given by Virgil —
' Spretse Ciconum quo munere matres
Inter sacra Deilm noctumique orgia Bacohi,
Discerptumlatos juvenemsparsere per agros. — QEOBO.iv.520.
Which Dryden translates —
The Thracian matrons who the youth accus'd,
Of love disdain'd and marriage rites refus'd ;
With furies and nocturnal orgies fir^d,
At length against his sacred Ufe conspir*d ;
Whom eVn the savage beasts had spar'd they kill'd,
And strew'd his mangled limbs about the field.
8 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
VI. Accordingly Clitarchus, in his twelfth book, says that
the Gymnosophists despise death, and that the Chaldaeans
study astronomy and the science of soothsaying — that the Magi
occupy themselves about the service to be paid to the gods, and
about sacrifices and prayers, as if they were the only people to
whom the deities listen : and that they deliver accounts of the
existence and generation of the gods, saying that they are fire,
and earth, and water ; and they condemn the use of images,
and above all things do they condemn those who say that the
gods ^e male and female ; they speak much of justice, and
think it impious to destroy the bodies of the dead by fire ; they
allow men to marry their mothers or their daughters, as So-
tion tells us in his twenty-third book; they study, the arts of
soothsaying and divination, and assert that the gods reveal
their will to them by those sciences. They teach also that the
air is full of phantoms, which, by emanation and a sort of eva-
poration, glide into the sight of those who have a clear percep-
tion ; they forbid any extravagance of ornament, and tiie tuse
of gold ; their garments are white, their beds are made of leaves,
and vegetables are their food, with cheese and coarse bread ;
they use a rush for a staff, the top of which they run into the
cheese, and so taking up a piece of it they eat it. Of all kinds
of magical divination they are ignorant, as Aristotle asserts in
his book on Magic, and Dinon in the fifth book of his Histories.
And this writer says, that the name of Zoroaster being inter-
preted means, a sacrifice to the stars ; and Hermodorus makes
the same statement. But Aristotle, in the first book of his
Treatise on Philosophy, says, that the Magi are more ancient
than the Egyptians ; and that according to them there are two
principles, a good demon and an evil demon, and that the
name of the one is Jupiter or Oromasdes, and that of the other
Pluto or Arimanius. And Hermippus gives the same account
in the first book of his History of the Magi ; and so does
Eudoxus in his Period ; and so does Theopompus in the eighth
book of his History of the Affairs of Philip ; and this last
writer tells us also, that according to the Magi men will have
a resurrection and be immortal, and that what exists now will
exist hereafter under its own present name ; and Eudemus of
Rhodes coincides in this statement. But Hecatseus says, that
according to their doctrines the gods also are beings who have
been bom. But Clearchus the Solensian, in his Treatise on
INTRODUCTION. 9
Education says, that the Gymnosophists are descendants of the
Magi ; and some say that the Jews also ate derived from them.
Moreover, those who have written on the subject of the Magi
condemn Herodotus ; for they say that Xerxes would never
have shot arrows against the sun, or have put fetters on the
sea, as both siin and sea have been handed down by the Magi
as gods, but that it was quite consistent for Xerxes to destroy
the images of the gods.
VII. The following is the account that authors give of the
philosophy of the Egyptians, as bearing on the gods and on
justice. They say that the first principle is matter ; then that
the four elements were formed out of matter and divided, and
that some animals were created, and that the sun and moon are
gods, of whom the former is called Osiris and the latter Isis,
and they are symbolised under the names of beetles and
dragons, and hawks, and other animals, as Manetho tells us
in his abridged account of Natural Philosophy, and HecatSBus
confirms the statement in the first book of his History of
the Philosophy of the Egyptians. They also make images of
the gods, and assign them temples because they do not know
the form of God. They consider that the world had a begin-
ning and vfiU have an end, and that it is a sphere ; they think
that the stars are fire, and that it is by a combination of them
that the things on earth are generated; that the moon is
eclipsed when it falls into the shadow of the earth ; that the
soul is eternal and migratory ; that rain is caused by the changes
of the atmosphere ; and they enter into other speculations on
points of natural history, as Hecatseus and Aristagoras inform
us.
They also have made laws about justice, which they attribute
to Merciuy, and they consider those animals which are useful
to be gods. They claim to themselves the merit of having
been the inventors of geometry, and astrology, and arithmetic.
So much then for the subject of invention.
VIII. But Pythagoras was the first person who invented the
term Philosophy, and who called himself a philosopher ; when
he was conversing at Sicyon with Leon, who was tyrant of the
Sicyonians or of the Phliasians (as Heraclides Ponticus relates
in the book which he* wrote about a dead woman) ; for he said
that no man ought to be called wise, but only God. For for-
merly what is now called philosophy ((ptXoaopia) was called
10 LIVES OP EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
"wisdom ((fo^/a), and they who professed it were called wise men
((fo<poi), as being endowed with great acuteness and accuracy of
mind ; but now he who embraces wisdom is called a philosopher
But the wise men were also called Sophists. And not
only they, but poets also were called Sophists : as Cratinus in
his Archilochi calls Homer and Hesiod, while praising them
highly.
IX. Now these were they who were accounted wise men.
Thales, Solon, Periander, Cleobulus, Chilo, Bias, Pittficus.
To these men add Anacharsis the Scythian, Myson the
Chenean, Pherecydes the Syrian, and Epimenides the Cretan ;
and some add, Pisistratus, the tyrant : These then are they
who were called the wise men.
X. But of Philosophy there arose two schools. One de-
rived from Anaximander, the other from Pythagoras. Now,
Thales had been the preceptor of Anaximander, and Phere-
cydes of Pythagoras. And the one school was called the
Ionian, because Thales, being an Ionian (for he was a native
of Miletus), had been tlie tutor of Anaximander; — but
the other was called the Italian from Pythagoras, because he
spent the chief part of his life in Italy. And the Ionic
school ends with Clitomswhus, and Chrysippus, and Theo-
phrastus ; and the Italian one with Epicurus ; for Anaxi-
mander succeeded Thales, and he was succeeded again by
Anaximenes, and he by Anaxagoras, and he by Archelaus,
who was the master of Socrates, who was the originator of
moral philosophy. And he was the master of the sect of the
Socratic philosophers, and of Plato, who was the founder of
the old Academy; and Plato's pupils were Speusippus and
Xenocrates ; and Polemo was the pupil of Xenocrates,
and Grantor and Crates of Polemo. Crates again was the
master of Arcesilaus, the founder of the Middle Academy,
and his pupil was Lacydes, who gave the new Academy
its distinctive principles. His pupil was Cameades, and he
in his turn was the master of Clitom£u;hus. And this school
ends in this way with CUtomachus and Chrysippus.
Antisthenes was the pupil of Socrates, and the master of
Diogenes the Cynic ; and the pupil, of Diogenes was Crates
the Theban ; Zeno the Cittiaean was his ; Cleanthes was his ;
Chrysippus was his. Again it ends with Theophrastus in
the following manner : —
INTRODUCTION. 11
Aristotle was the pupil of Plato, Theophrastus the pupil
of Aristotle ; and in this way the Ionian school comes to
an end.
Now the Italian school was carried on in this way.
Pythagoras was the pupil of Pherecydes; his pupil was
Telauges his son ; he was the master of Xenophanes, and he
of Parmenides ; Parmenides of Zeno the Eleatic, he of
Leucippus, he of Democritus : Democritus had many disciples,
the most eminent of whom were Nausiphanes and Nausicydes,
and they were the masters of Epicurus.
XI. Now, of Philosophers some were dogmatic, and others
were inclined to suspend their opinions. By dogmatic, I
mean those who explain their opinions about matters, as if'
they could be comprehended. By those who suspend their
opinions, I mean those who give no positive judgment, think-
ing that these things cannot be comprehended. And the
former class have left many memorials of themselves ;
but the others have never written a line ; as for in-
stance, according to some people, Socrates, and Stilpo, and
Philippus, and Menedemus, and Pyrrho, and Theodoras, and
Gameades, and Bryson ; and, as some people say, Pythagoras,
and Aristo of Chios, except that he wrote a few letters. There
are some men too who have written one work only, Melissus,
Parmenides, and Ajmxagoras ; but Zeno wrote many works,
Xenophanes still more ; Democritus more, Aristotle more,
Epicurus more, and Chrysippus more.
XII. Again, of philosophers some derived a surname from
cities, as, die Elians, and Megaric sect, the Eretrians, and
the Cyrenaics. Some from the places which they frequented,
as the Academics and Stoics. Some from accidental circum-
stances, as the Peripatetics; or, from jests, as the Cynics.
Some again from their dispositions, as the Eudsemonics ; some
from an opinion, as the Elenctic, and Analogical schools.
Some from their masters, as the Socratic and Epicurean phi-
losophers; and so on. The Natural Philosophers were so
called from their study of nature ; the Ethical philosophers
from tlieir investigation of questions of morals (in^i r& idr}).
The Dialecticians are they who devote themselves to quibbling
on words.
XIII. Now there are three divisions of philosophy.
Natural, Ethical, and Dialectic. Natural philosophy occupies
12 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHEKS.
itself about the world and the things in it ; Ethital philosophy
about life, and the things which concern us ; Dialectics are
conversant with the arguments by which both the others are
supported.
Natural philosophy prevailed till the time of Archelaus;
but after the time of Socrates, Ethical philosophy was pre-
dominant ; and after the time of Zeno the Eleatic, Dialectic
philosophy got the upper hand.
Ethical philosophy was subdivided into ten sects ; the
Academic, the Cyrenaic, the Elian, the Megaric, the Cynic,
the Eretrian, the Dialectic, the Peripatetic, the Stoic, and
the Epicurean. Of the old Academic school Plato was the
president ; of the middle, Arcesilaus ; and of the New,
Lacydes : — the Cyrenaic school was founded by Aristippus the
Cyrenian ; the Elian, by Phaedo, of Elis ; the Megaric, by
Euclid, of Megara; the Cynic, by Antisthenes, the Athenian;
the Eretrian, by Menedemus, of Eretria; the Dialectic by
Clitomachus, the Carthaginian ; the Peripatetic, by Aristotle,
the Stagirite ; the Stoic, by Zeno, the Cittisean ; the Epicurean
school derives its name from Epicurus, its founder.
But Hippobotus, in his Treatise on Sects, says that there
are nine sects and schools : firsts the Megaric ; secondly, the
Eretrian ; thirdly, the Cyrenaic ; fourthly, the Epicurean ;
fifthly, the Annicerean ; sixthly, the Theodorean ; seventhly,
the sect of Zeno and the Stoics ; eighthly, that of the Old
Academy ; and ninthly, the Peripatetic ; — not counting
either the Cynic, or the Eliac, or the Dialectic school. That
also which is called the Pyhrronean is repudiated by many,
writers, on account of the obscurity of its principles. But
others consider that in some particulars it is a distinct sect,
and in others not. For it does appear to be a sect — for what
we call a sect, say they, is one which follows, or appears to
follow, a principle which appears to it to be the true one ; on
which principle we correctly call the Sceptics a sect. But if
bv the name sect we understand those who incline to rules
which are consistent with the principles which they profess,
then the Pyrrhonean cannot be called a sect, for they have no
rules or principles.
These, then, are the beginnings, these are the successive
masters, these are the divisions, and schools of philosophy.
XIV. Moreover, it is not long ago, that a new Eclectic
INTRODUCTION. 13
school was set up by Potamo, of Alexandiia, Yiho picked out
of the doctrines of each school what pleased him most. And
as he himself says, in his Elementary Instruction, he thinks
that there are certain criteria of truth : first of all the faculty
which judges, and this is the superior one ; the other that
which is the foundation of the judgment, being a most
exact appearance of the objects. And the first principles of
everything he calls matter, and the agent, and the quality, and
the .place. For they show out of what, and by what, and
how, and where anything is done. The end is that to which
everything is refeired ; namely, a life made perfect vnth every
virtue, not without the natural and external qualities of the
body.
But we must now speak of the men themselves ; and first
of all about Thales.
}4 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
LIFE OF THAI.es.
I. Thales, then, as Herodotus and Duris and Democritus
say, was the son of Euxamius and Gleobule ; of the family of
the Thelidffi, who are Phoenicians by descent, among the
most noble of all the descendants of Cadmus and Agenor, as
Plato testifies. And he was the first man to whom the name
of Wise was given, when Damasius was Archon at Athens, in
whose time also the seven wise men had that title given to
them, as Demetrius Phalereus records in his Catalogue of the
Archons. He was enrolled as a citizen at Miletus when
he came thither ¥dth Neleus, who had been banished from
Pfacenicia ; but a more common statement is that he was a
native Milesian, of noble extraction.
II. After having been immersed in state affairs he
applied himself to speculations in natural philosophy ;
though, as some people state, he left no writings behind him.
For the book on Naval Astronomy, which is attributed to him
is said in reality to be the work of Focus the Samian. But
Callimachus was aware that he was the discoverer of the Lesser
Bear ; for in his Iambics he speaks of him thus :
And, he, 'tis said, did first compute the stars
Which beam in Charles's wain, and guide the bark
Of the Phoenician sailor o'er the sea.
According to others he wrote two books, and no more,
about the solstice and the equinox ; thinking that everything
else was easily to be comprehended. According to other
statements, he is said to have been the first who studied
astronomy, and who foretold the eclipses and motions of the
sun, as Eudemus relates in his history of the discoveries
made in astronomy; on which account Xenophanes and
Herodotus praise him greatly; and Heraclitus and De-
mocritus confirm this statement.
III. Some again (one of whom is Chsrilus the poet) say
that he was the first person who affirmed that the souls of
men were immortal ; and he was the first person, too, who
THALES. 15
discovered the path of the sun from one end of the ecliptic to
the other; and who, as one account tells us, defined the
magnitude of the sun as heing seven hundred and twenty
times as great as that of the moon. He was also the first
person who called the last day of the month the thirtieth.
And likewise the first to converse ahout natural philosophy, as
some say. But Aristotle and Hippias say that he attributed
souls also to lifeless things, forming his conjecture from the
nature of the magnet, and of amber. And Pamphile relates
that he, having learnt geometry from the Egyptians, was the
first person to describe a right-angled triangle in a circle, and
that he sacrificed an ox in honour of his discovery. But others,
among whom is Apollodorus the calculator, say that it was
Pythagoras who made this discovery. It was Thales also who
carried to their greatest point of advancement the discoveries
which Callimachus in his iambics says were first made by Eu-
phebus the Phrygian, such as those of the scalene angle, and of
the triangle, and of other things which relate to investigations
about lines. He seems also to have been a man of the greatest
wisdom in political matters. For when Croesus sent to the
Milesians to invite them to an alliance, he prevented them
from agreeing to it, which step of his, as Cyrus got the victory,
proved the salvation of the city. But Clytus relates, as
Heraclides assures us, that he was attached to a solitary and
recluse life.
lY. Some assert that he was married, and that he had a
son named Cibissus ; others, on the contrary, say that he
never had a wife, but that he adopted the son of his sister ;
and that once being asked why he did not himself become a
father, he answered, that it was because he was fond of chil-
dren. They say, too, that when his mother exhorted him to
marry, he said, "No, by Jove, it is not yet time." And
afterwards, when he was past his youth, and she was again
pressing him earnestly, he said, *• It is no longer time."
V. Hieronymus, of Ehodes, also tells us, in the second
book of his Miscellaneous Memoranda, that when he was
desirous to show that it was easy to get rich, he, foreseeing
that there would be a great crop of olives, took some large
plantations of olive trees, and so made a great deal of
money.
VI. He asserted water to be the principle of all things,
A
16 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
and that the world had life, and was full of daemons : they
say, toOt that he was the original definer of the seasons of the
year, and that it was he who divided the year into three
hundred and sixty-five days. And he never had any teacher
except during the time that he went to Egypt, and associated
with the priests. Hieronymus also says that he measured the
Pyramids : watching their shadow, and calculating when they
were of the same size as that was. He lived with Thrasy-
bulus the tyrant of Miletus, as we are informed by Minyas.
VII. Now it is known to every one what happened with
respect to the tripod that was found byjthe fishermen and
sent to the wise men by the people of the Milesians. For
they say that some Ionian youths bought a cast of their net
from some Milesian fishermen. And when the tripod was
drawn up in the net there was a dispute about it; until
the Milesians sent to Delphi : and the God gave them the
following answer : —
You ask about the tripod, to whom yon shall present it ; j
'Tis for the wisest, I reply, that fortune surely meant it.
Accordingly they gave it to Thales, and he gave it to some
one, who again handed it over to another, till it came to
Solon. But he said that it was the God himself who
was the first in wisdom; and so he sent it to Delphi. But
Callimachus gives a different accoimt of this in his Iambics,
taking the tradition which he mentions from Leander the
Milesian; for he says that a certain Arcadian of the name of
Bathydes, when dying, left a goblet behind him with an injunc-
tion that it should be given to the first of the wise men. And
it was given to Thales, and went the whole circle till it came
back to Thales, on which he sent it to Apollo Didymseus, adding
(according to Callimachus,) the following distich : —
Thales, who*s twice received me as a prize.
Gives me to him who rules the race of Neleus.
And the prose inscription runs thus * —
Thales the son of Examius, a Milesian, offers this to Apollo Didy-
mseus, having twice received it from the Greeks as the reward for
virtue.
And the name of the son of Bathydes who carried the goblet
THALBS. 17
about from one to the other, was Thyrion, as Eleusis tells
us in his History of Achilles. And Alexander the Myndian
agrees with him in the ninth book of his Traditions. But
Eudoxus of Gnidos, and Evanthes of Miletus, say that one of
the friends of Croesus received from the king a golden goblet,
for the purpose of giving it to the wisest of the Greeks ; and
that he gave it to Thales, and that it came round to Chile, and
that he inquired of the God at Delphi who was wiser than him-
self; and that the God replied, Myson, whom we shall mention
hereafter. (He is the man whom Eudoxus places among the
seven wise men instead of Cleobulus ; but Plato inserts his
name instead of Periander.) The God accordingly made this
reply concerning him : —
I say that Myson, the ^toean sage, ;
The citizen of Chen, is wiser far
In his deep mind than you.
The person who went to the temple to ask the question was
Anacbarsis ; but again Daedacus, the Platonic philosopher,
and Clearchus, state that the goblet was sent by Croesus to
Pittacus, and so was carried round to the d^erent men.
But Andron, in his ho6k called The Tripod, says that the
Argives offered the tripod as a prize for excellence to the wisest
of the Greeks ; and that Aristodemus, a Spartan, was judged
to deserve it, but that he yielded the palm to Chilo ; and
Alcasus mentions Aristodemus in these lines : —
And so they say Aristodoinns once
Uttered a truthful speech in noble Sparta :
'Tis money makes the man ; and he who's none.
Is counted neither good nor honourable.
But some say that a vessel fully loaded was sent by Periander
to Thrasybulus the tyrant of the Milesians ; and that as the
ship was wrecked in the sea, near the island of Cos, this tri-
pod was afterwards found by some fishermen. Phanodicus
says that it was found in the sea near Athens, and so brought
into the city ; and then, after an assembly had been held to
decide on the disposal, it was sent to Bias — and the reason
why we will mention in our account of Bias. Others say that
this goblet had been 'made by Vulcan, and presented by the
Gods to Pelops, on his marriage ; and that subsequently it came
into the possession of Menelaus, and was taken away by Paris
0
18 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS,
when he earned off Helen, and was thrown into the sea near
Cos by her, as she said that it would become a cause of battle.
And after some time, some of the citizens of Lebedos having
bought a net, this tripod was brought up in it ; and as they
quarrelled with the fishermen about it, they went to Cos ; and
not being able to get the matter settled there, they laid it before
the Milesians, as Miletus was their metropolis ; and they sent
ambassadors, who were treated with neglect, on which account
they made war on the Goans ; and after each side had met with
many revolutions of fortune, an oracle directed that the tripod
should be ^ven to the wisest $ and then both parties agreed
that it belonged to Thales : and he, after it had gone the
circuit of all the wise men, presented it to the Didymesan
Apollo. Now, the assignation of the oracle was given to the
Coans in the following words i —
The war between the brave Ionian race
And the proud Meropes will never cease,
Tin the rich golden tripod which the God,
Its maker, cast beneath the briny waves,
Is from your city sent^ and justly given
To that wise being who knows all present things.
And all that's past, and all that is to come.
And the reply given to the Milesians was —
You ask about the tripod :
and so on, as I have related it before. And now we have said
enough on this subject.
But Hermippus, in his Lives, refers to Thales what has
been by some people reported of Socrates ; for he recites that
he used to say that he thanked fortune for three things : — first
of all, that he had been bom a man and not a beast ; secondly,
that he was a man and not a woman ; and thirdly, that he was
ft Greek and not a barbarian.
YIII. It 'is said that once he vms led out of his house by an
old woman for the purpose of observing the stars, and he fell
into a ditch and bewailed himself, bn which the old woman
said to him — " Do you, O Thales, who cannot see what is
under your feet, think that you shall understand what is in
heaven ?'* Timon also knew that he was an astronomer, and
in his Silli he praises him. saying :_
THALES. 19
Like Thales, wisest of the Beven sagea^
That great astronomer.
And Lobon, of Argos, says, that which was written by him ex-
tends to about two hundred verses ; and that the following
inscription is engraved upon his statue :—
3iiletus, fairest of Ionian cities,
Gkkve birth to Thales, great astronomer,
Wisest of mortals in all kinds of knowledge.
IX. And these are quoted as some of his lines : —
It is not many words that real wisdom proves ;
Breathe rather one wise thought,
Select one worthy object,
So shall you best the endless prate of silly men reprove. —
And the following are quoted as sayings of his : — " God is the
most ancient of all things, for he had no birth : the world is the
most beautiful of things, for it is the work of God : place is
the greatest of things, for it contains all things : intellect is the
swiftest of things, for it runs through everything : necessity
is the strongest of things, for it rules everything : time is the
wisest of things, for it finds out everything."
He said also that there was no difference between life and
death. " Why, then," said some one to him, " do not you
die?" ** Because," said he, "it does make no difference.'*
A man asked him which was made first, night or day, and he
replied, " Night was made first by one day." Another man
asked him whether a man who did wrong, could escape the
notice of the Gods. ** No, not even if he thinks wrong," said
he. An adulterer inquired of him whether he should swear that
he had not committed adultery. " Peijury," said he, "is no
worse than adultery.'* When he was asked what was very
difficult, he said, " To know one's self." And what was easy,
" To advise another." What was most pleasant ? " To be
successful." To the question, " What is the divinity ?" he re-
plied, " That which has neither beginning nor end." When
asked what hard thing he had seen, he said, " An old man a
tyrant." When the question was put to him how a man might
most easUy endure misfortune, he said, " If he saw his enemies
more unfortunate still." When asked how men might live
most virtuously and most justly, he said, "If we never do our-
selves what we blame in others." To the question, " Who was
c2
20 LIVES OP EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
happy T he mad© answer, ** He who is healthy in his body, easy
in his circumstances, and well-instructed as to his mind." He
said that men ought to remember those friends who were
absent as well as those who were present, and not to care about
adorning their faces, but to be beautified by their studies. " Do
not," said he, " get rich by evil actions, and let not any one
ever be able to reproach you with speaking against those
who partake of your friendship. All the assistance that you
give to your parents, the same you have a right to expect from
your children." He said that the reason of the Nile over-
flowing was, that its streams were beaten back by the Etesian
winds blowing in a contrary direction.
X. Apollodorus, in his Chronicles, says, that Thales was
bom in the first year of the thirty-fifth Olympiad ; and he
died at the age of seventy-eight years, or according to the
statement of Sosicrates, at the age of ninety, for he died in the
fifty-eighth Olympiad, having lived in the time of Crcesus, to
whom he promised that he would enable him to pass the Halys
without a bridge, by turning the course of the river.
XI. There have also been other men of the name of Thales,
as Demetrius of Magnesia says, in his Treatise on People and
Things of the same name; of whom five are particularly
mentioned, an orafor of Calatia of a very affected style of
eloquence ; a painter of Sicyon, a great man ; the third was
one who lived in very ancient times, in the age of Homer and
Hesiod and Lycurgus ; the fourth is a man who is mentioned
by Duris in his work on Painting ; the fifth is a more modem
person, of no great reputation, who is mentioned by Dionysius
in his Criticisms.
• XII. But this wise Thales died while present as a spectator
at a gymnastic contest, being worn out with heat and thirst and
wreakness, for he was very old, and the following inscription
was placed on his tomb : —
You see this tomb is small — ^but recollect^
The fame of Thales reaches to the skies.
I have also myself composed this epigram on him in the first
book of my epigrams or poems in various metres : —
0 mighty sun, our wisest Thales sat
Spectator of the games, when you did seize upon him ;
But you were right to take him near yourself.
Now that his aged sight could scarcely reach to heaven.
THALES. 31
Xill. The apophthegm, "know yourself," is his; though
Antisthenes in his Successions, says that it belongs to
Fhemonoe, but that Chile appropriated it as his own.
XIV. Now concerning the seven, (for it is well here to
speak of them all together,) the following traditions are handed
down. Damon the Cyrensean, who wrote about the philosophers,
reproaches them all, but most especially the seven. And
Anaximenes says, that they all applied themselves to poetry.
But Dicaearchus says, that they were neither wise men nor
philosophers, but merely shrewd men, who had studied
legislation. And Archetimus, the Syracusian, wrote an account
of their having a meeting at the palace of Cypselus, at which
he says that he himself was present. Ephorus says that they
all except Thales met at the court of Croesus. And some say
that they also met at the Pandionium,''^ and at Corinth, and
at Delphi. There is a good deal of disagreement between
different writers with respect to their apophthegms, as the
same one is attributed by them to various authors. For
instance there is the epigram : —
Chilo, the Spartan sage, this sentence said :
Seek no excess— all timely things are good.
There is also a difference of opinion with respect to their
number. Leander inserts in the number instead of Cleobulus
and Myson, Leophantus Gorsias, a native of either Lebedos or
Ephesus; and Epimenides, the Cretan; Plato, in his Protagoras,
reckons Myson among them instead of Periander. And
Ephorus mentions Anacharsis in the place of Myson; some
also add Pythagoras to the number. Dicsearchus speaks of
four, as universally agreed upon, Thales, Bias, Pittacus, and
Solon; and then enumerates six more, of whom we are to
select three, namely, Aristodemus, Pamphilus, Chilo the
Lacedaemonian, Cleobulus, Anacharsis, and Periander. Some
add Acusilaus of Argos, the son of Cabas, or ^cabras. But
Hermippus, in his Treatise on the Wise Men says that there
were altogether seventeen, out of whom different authors
selected different individuals to make up the seven. These
seventeen were Solon, Thales, Pittacus, Bias, Chile, Myson,
* This was the temple of the national diety of the lonians, Neptune
Helioonius, on Mount Mycale." — ^Vide Smith, Diet, Gr, cmd Mom, Antiq,
22 LIVES OP EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
Cleobulus, Periander, Anacharsis, Acusilaus, Epimenides,
Leophantus, Pherecydes, Aristodemus, Pythagoras, Lasus the
son of Charmantides, or Sisymbrinus, or as Aristoxenus calls
him the son of Chabrinus, a citizen of Hermione, and Anaxa-
goras. But Hippobotus in his Description of the Philoso-
phers enumerates among them Orpheus, Linus, Solon, Peri-
ander, Anacharsis, Cleobulus, Myson, Thales, Bias, Pittacus,
Epicharmus, and Pythagoras.
XV. The following letters are preserved as having been
written by Thales : —
THALES TO PHERECYDES.
I hear that you are disposed, as no other Ionian has been,
to discourse to the Greeks about divine things, and perhaps it
will be wiser of you to reserve for your own friends what you
write rather than to entrust it to any chance people, without
any advantage. If therefore it is agreeable to you, I should
be glad to become a pupil of yours as to the matters about
which you write ; and if you invite me I will come to you to
Syros; for Solon' the Athenian' and I must be out of our
senses if we sailed to Crete to investigate the history of that
country, and to Egypt for the purpose of conferring with the
priests and astronomers who are to be found there, and yet
are unwilling to make a voyage to you; for Solon will come too,
if you will give him leave, for as you are fond of your present
habitation you are not likely to come to Ionia, nor are you
desirous of seeing strangers ; but you rather, as I hope, devote
yourself wholly to the occupation of writing. We, on the other
hand, who write nothing, travel over all Greece and Asia.
THALES TO SOLON.
XVI. If you should leave Athens it appears to me that you
would find a home at Miletus among the colonists of Athens
more suitably than anywhere else, for here there are no
annoyances of any kind. And if you are indignant because we
Milesians are governed by a tyrant, (for you yourself hate all
despotic rulers), still at all events you will find it pleasant to
live with us for your companions. Bias has also written to
invite you to Priene, and if you prefer taking up your abode
SOLON. , 23
in the dty of the Prieneans, then we ourselves will come
thither and settle near you.
LIFE OF SOLON.
I. Soix)N the son of Execestides, a native of Salamis, was
the first person who introduced among the Athenians, an
ordinance for the lowering * of debts ; for this was the name
given to the release of the bodies and possessious of the
debtors. For men used to borrow on the security of their
own persons, and many became slaves in consequence of their
inability to pay ; and as seven talents were owed to him as a
part of his paternal inheritance when he succeeded to it, he
was the first person who made a composition with his debtors,
and who exhorted the other men who had money owing to
them to do likewise, and this ordinance was called <iit<sdyfiiia ;
and the reason why is plain. After that he enacted his other
laws, which it would take a long time to enumerate ; and he
wrote them on wooden revolving tablets.
II. But ;what was his most important act of all was, when
there had been a great dispute about his native land Salamis,
between the Athenians and Megarians, and when the Athenians
had met with many disasters in war, and had passed a decree
that if any one proposed to the people to go to war for the
sake of Salamis he should be punished with death, he then
pretended to be mad and putting on a crown rushed into the
market place, and there he recited tb the Athenians by the
agency of a crier, the elegies which he had composed, and
which were all directed to the subject of Salamis, and by these
means he excited them ; and so they made war again upon the
Megarians and conquered them by means of Solon. And the
elegies which had the greatest influence on the Athenians were
these : —
Woxdd that I were a man of PholegandroSji*
Or small Sicimia,:}: rather than of Athens :
♦ Vide Thirlwall, Hist, of Greece, IL p. 34. f One of the Sporades.
X An island near Crete.
S4 LIVES OF EKINENT PHIL080PHEB&
For Boon this will a common proverb be,
That's an Athenian who won't fight for Salamis.
And another was : —
Let's go and fight for lovely Salamis,
And wipe off this our present infamy.
He also persuaded them to take possession of the Thracian
Chersonesus, and in order that it might appear that the Athenians
had got possession of Salamis not by force alone, but also with
justice, he opened some tombs, and showed that the corpses
buried in them were all turned towards the east, according to
the Athenian fashion of sepulture ; likewise the tombs them-
selves all looked east, and the titles of the boroughs to which
the dead belonged were inscribed on them, which was a custom
peculiar to the Athenians. Some also say that it was he who
added to the catalogue of Homer, after the lines : —
With these appear the Salaminian bands.
Whom Telamon's gigantic son commands—
These other verses : —
In twelve black ships to Troy they steer their course.
And with the great Athenians join their force.*
III. And ever after this time the people was willingly
obedient to him, and was contented to be governed by him ;
but he did not choose to be their ruler, and moreover, as
Sosicrates relates, he, as far as in him lay, hindered also his
relative Pisistratus from being so, when he saw that he was
inclined to such a step. Eus£ung into one of the assemblies
armed with a spear and shield, he forewarned the people of
the design of Pisistratus, and not only that but told them that
he was prepared to assist them ; and these were his words :
**Ye men of Athens, I am wiser than some of you, and
braver than others. Wiser than those of you who do not per-
ceive the treachery of Pisistratus; and braver than those who
are aware of it, but out of fear hold their peace." But the
council, being in the interest of Pisistratus, said that he was
mad, on which he spoke as follows : —
A short time will to all my madness prove.
When stem reality presents itself.
♦ Horn. D. 2. 671. Diyden's Version,
SOLON. 25
And these elegiac verses -were written by him about the
tyranny of Pisistratus, which he foretold,
fierce snow and hail are from the clouds borne down,
And thunder after brilliant lightning roars ;
And by its own great men a city falls,
The ignorant mob becoming slaves to kings. - '
IV. And when Pisistratus had obtained the supreme power,
he, as he would not influence him, laid down his arms before
the chief council-house, and said, " 0 my country, I have stood
by you in word* and deed." And then he sailed away to
Egypt, and Cyprus, and came to Croesus. And while at his
court being asked by him, •* Who appears to' you to be happy? "*
He replied, " Tellus the Athenian, and Cleobis and Biton,"
and enumerated other commonly spoken of instances. But
some people say, that once Crcesus adorned himself in every
possible manner, and took his seat upon his throne, and then
asked Solon whether he had ever seen a more beautiful sight.
But he said, '*Yes, I have seen cocks and pheasants, and
peacocks ; for they are adorned with natural colours, and such
as are ten thousand times more beautiful.*' Afterwards leav-
ing Sardis he went to CiHcia, and there he founded a city
which he called Soli after his own name ; and he placed in it a
few Athenians as colonists, who in time departed from the
strict use of their native language, and were said to speak
Solecisms ; and the inhabitants of that city are called Solen-
sians ; but those of Soli in Cyprus are called Solians.
V. And when he learnt that Pisistratus continued to rule in
Athens as a tyrant, he wrote these verses on the Athenians : —
If through jour vices you afflicted are,
Lay not the blame of your distress on Qod ;
You made your rulers mighty, gave them guards,
So now you groan 'neath slavery^s heavy rod —
"Esuch. one of you now treads in foxiss' steps,
Bearing a weak, inconstant, faithless mind,
Trusting the tongue and slippery speech of man ;
Though in his acts alone you truth can find.
This, then, he said to them.
VI. But Pisistratus, when he was leaving Athens, wrote him
a letter in the following terms : —
♦ Vide Herod, lib. 1. c. 80—33.
26 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
PISISTBATUS TO SOLON.
I am not the only one of the Greeks who has seized the
sovereignty of his country, nor am I one who had no right
whatever to do so, since I am of the race of Codras ; for I have
only recovered what the Athenians swore that they would give to
Oodrus and all his family, and what they afterwards deprived
them of. And in all other respects I sin neither against men
nor against gods, hut I allow the Athenians to live under the
laws which you established amongst them, ajdd they are now
living in a better manner than they would if they were imder
a democracy ; for I allow no one to behave with violence : and
I, though I am the tyrant, derive no other advantage beyond
my superiority in rank and honour, being content with the
fixed honours which belonged to the former kings. And eveiy
one of the Athenians brings the tithe of his possessions, not
to me, but to the proper place in order that it may be devoted
to the public sacrifices of the city ; and for any other public
purposes, or for any emergencies of war which may arise.
But I do not blame you for laying open my plans, for I
know that you did so out of regard for the city rather than out
of dislike to me ; and also because you did not know what sort
of government I was about to establish ; since, if you had been
acquainted with it, you would have been content to live imder
it and would not have fled. Now, therefore, return home
again; believing me even without my swearing to you that
Solon shall never receive any harm at the hands of Pisistratus ;
know also that none of my enemies have suffered any evil from
me ; and if you will consent to be one of my friends, you shall
be among the first ; for I know that there is no treachery or
faithlessness in you. Or if you wish to live at Athens in any
other manner, you shall be allowed to do so; only do not
deprive yourself of your country because of my actions.
Thus wrote Pisistratus.
YII. Solon also said, that the limit of human life was
seventy years, and he appears to have been a most excellent
lawgiver, for he erijoined, " that if any one did not support his
parents he should be accounted infamous ; and that the man
who squandered his patrimony should be equally so, and the
inactive man was liable to prosecution by any one who choose
to impeach him. But Lysias, in his speech against Nicias,
SOLON. 27
says that Draco fiist proposed this law, hut that it was Solon
who enacted it He also prohibited all who lived in debauchery
from ascending the tribunal ; and he diminished the honours
paid to Athletes who were rictorious in the games, fixing the
prize for a victor at Olympia at five hundred drachmae,* and for
one who conquered at the Isthmian games at one hundred ;
and in the same proportion did he fix the prizes for the other
games, for he said, that it was absurd to give such great
honours to those men as ought to be reserved for those only
who died in the wars ; and their sons he ordered to be educated
and bred up at the public expense. And owing to this encou-
ragement, the Athenians behave themselves nobly and valiantly
in war; as for instance, Polyzelus, and Gynsegirus, and
Callimachus, and all the soldiers who fought at Marathon, and
HarmodiuSy and Aristogiton, and Miltiades, and numberless
other heroes.
But as for the Athletes, their training is very expensive,
and their victories injurious, and they are crowned rather as
conquerors of their country than of their antagonists, and
when they become old, as Euripides says : —
They're like old cloaks worn to the very woof.
IX. So Solon, appreciating these facts, treated them with
moderation. This also was an admirable regulation of his, that
a guardian of orphans should not live with their mother, and
that no one should be appointed a guardian, to whom tho
orphans' property would come if they died. Another excellent
law was, that a seal engraver might not keep an impression
of any ring which had been sold by him, and that if a person
struck out the eye of a man who had but one, he should lose
both his own, and that no one should claim what he had not
deposited, otherwise death should be his punishment. If an
archon was detected being drunk, that too was a capital crime
And he compiled the poems of Homer, so that they might be
recited by diflferent bards, taking the cue from one another, so
that where one had left off the next one might take him up,
80 that it was Solon rather than Pisistratus who brought
Homer to light, as Dieuchidas says, in the fifth book of his
History of Megara, and the most celebrated of his verses
were :— •
I A drachma was somethiDg less than ten pence.
is LIVES OF EMIN^T PmiiOSOPHEBS.
Full fifty more from Athens stem the main.
And the rest of that passage — *' And Solon was the first person
-who called the thirtieth day of the month ivri xai vea."* He was
the first person also who assembled the nine archons together
to deliver their opinions, as ApoUodorus tells us in the second
book of his Treatise on Lawgivers. And once, when there was
a sedition in the city, he took part, neither with the citizens,'
nor with the inhabitants of the plain, nor with the men of the
sea-coast.
X. He used to say, too, that speech was the image of actions,
and that the king was the mightiest man as to his power ; but
that laws were like cobwebs — ^for that if any trifling or power-
less thing fell into them, they held it fast ; but if a thing
of any size fell into them, it broke the meshes and escaped.
He used also to say that discourse ought to be sealed by silence,
and silence by opportunity. It was also a saying of his, that
those who had influence with tyrants, were like the pebbles which
are used in making calculations ; for that eveiy one of those
pebbles were sometimes worth more, and sometimes less, and
so that the Qrrants sometimes made each of these men of con-
sequence, and sometimes neglected them. Being asked why-
he had made no law concerning parricides, he made answer,
that he did not expect that any such person would exist.
When he was asked bowmen could be most effectually deterred
from committing injustice, he said, " If those who are not in-
jured feel as much indignation as those who are." Another
apophthegm of his was, that satiety was generated by wealth,
and insolence by satiety.
XI. He it was who taught the Athenians to regulate their
days by the course of the moon ; and he also forbade Thespis
to perform and represent his tragedies, on the ground of
falsehood being unprofitable ; and when Pisistratus wounded
himself, he said it all came of Thespis's tragedies.
* "'Evi| cat via the last day of the month : -elsewhere rptaviSiQ, So
called for this reason. The old Greek year was lunar ; now the moon's
monthly orbit is twenty-nine and a half days. So that if the first month
began with the sun and moon together at sunrise, at the month's end
it would be simset ; and the second month would begin at sunset. To
prevent this irregularity, Solon made the latter half day belong to the
first month ; so that this thirtieth day consisted of two halves, one
belonging to the old, the other to the new moon. And when the lunar
month fell into disuse, the last day of the calendar month was still
called *£v9 km via/* — !• dk & Greek Lexicon, in v. ivo^.
SOLON. 29
XII. He gave the foUoiidng advice, as is recorded by Apol-
lodorus in his Treatise on the Sects of Philosophers : — " Con-
sider your honour, as a gentleman, of more weight than an
oath. — Never speak falsely. — ^Pay attention to matters of im-
portance.— Be not hasty in making friends'; and do not cast
off those whom you have made. — Rule, after you have first
learnt to submit to rule. — Advise not what is most agreeable,
but what is best. — Make reason your guide. — Do not asso-
ciate with the wicked. — Honour the gods ; respect your
parents."
XIII. They say also that when Mimnermus had written : —
Happy's the man who 'scapes disease and care,
And dies contented in his sixtieth year :
Solon rebuked him, and said : —
Be guided now hy me, erase this verse.
Nor envy me if I'm more wise than yon.
If you write thus, your wish would not be worse,
May I be eighty ere death lays me low.
The following are some lines out of his poems : —
Watch well each separate citizen,
Lest having in his heart of hearts
A secret spear, one still may come
Saluting you with cheerful face,
And utter with a double tongue
The feigned good wishes of his wary mind.
As for his having made laws, that is notorious ; he also com-
posed speeches to the people, and a book of suggestions to
himself, and some elegiac poems, and five thousand verses about
Salamis and the constitution of the Athenians ; and some iam-
bics and epodes.
XV. And on his statue is the following inscription —
Salamis that checked the Persian insolence.
Brought forth this holy lawgiver, wise Solon.
He flourished about the forty-sixth Olympiad, in the third year
of which he was archon at Athens, as Sosicrates records ; and
it was in this year that he enacted his laws ; and he died in
Cyprus, after he had lived eighty years, having given charge to
his relations to carry his bones to Salamis, and there to btrm
them to ashes, and to scatter the ashes on the ground. In re-
30 LIVES OF EMINENT PHIL0S0PHEB8.
ference to which Cratiuus in his Chiron represents him as
speaking thus :—
And as men say, I still this isle inhabit,
Sown o'er the whole of Ajaz' famous citj.
There is also an epigram in the hefore mentioned collection
of poems, in various metres, in which I have made a collection,
of notices of all the illustrious men that have ever died, in everj
kind of metre and rhythm, in epigrams and odes. And it runs
thus : —
The Cyprian flame devour'd great Solon's corpse,
Far in a foreign land ; but Salamis
Retains his bones, whose dust is turned to com.
The tablets of his laws do bear aloft
His mind to heaven. Such a burden light
Are these immortal rules to th' happy wood.
XVI. He also, as some say, was the author of the apoph-
thegm— " Seek excess in nothing." And Dioscorides, in his
Commentaries, says, that, when he was lamenting his son,
who was dead (with whose name I am not acquainted), and when
some one said to him, " You do no good by weeping," herepUed,
"But that is the very reason why I weep, hecause I do no
good."
XVII. The following letters also are attributed to him : —
SOLON TO PERIANDEB.
You send me word that many people are plotting against
you ; but if you were to think of putting everyone of them out
of the way, you would do no good ; but some one whom you do
not suspect would still plot against you, partly because he would
fear for himself, and partly out of dislike to you for fearing all
sorts of things ; and he would think, too, that he would make
the city grateful to him, even if you were not suspected. It is
hotter, therefore, to abstain from the tyranny, in order to es-
cape from blame. But if you absolutely must he a tyrant, then
you had better provide for having a foreign force in the city
superior to that of the citizens ; and then no one need be for-
midable to you, nor need you put any one out of the way.
SOLON TO EPIMENIDES.
XVIII. My laws were not destined to he long of service
SOLON. , 31
to the Athenians, nor have you done any great good by puri-
fying the city. For neither can the Deity nor lawgivers do
much good to cities by themselves ; but these people rather
have this power, who, from time to time, can lead the people
to any opinions they choose ; so also the Deity and the
laws, when the citizens are well governed, are useful ; but
when they are ill govemed,'"they are no good. Nor are my laws
nor all the enactments that I made, any better ; but those who
were in power tiHBSgressed them, and did great iigniy to the
commonwealth, inasmuch as they did not hinder Pisistratus
from ursurping the tyranny. Nor did they beheve me when I
gave them warning beforehand. But he obtained more credit
than I did, who flattered the Athenians while I told him the
truth : but I, placing my arms before the principal council-
house, being wiser than they, told those who hiad no suspicion of
it, that Pisistratus was desirous to make himself a tyrant ; and
I showed myself more valiant than those who hesitated to de-
fend the state against him. But they condemned the madness
of Solon. But at last I spoke loudly — " O, my country, I,
Solon, here am ready to defend you by word and deed ; but to
these men I seem to be mad. So I will depart from you, being
the only antagonist of Pisistratus ; and let these men be his
guards if tbey please." For you know the man, my friend, and
how cleverly he seized upon the tyranny. He first began by
being a demagogue ; then, having inflicted wounds on him-
self, he came to the Heliaea, crying out, and saying, " That he
had been treated in this way by his enemies.* And he en-
treated the people to assign him as giiards four hundred young
men ; and they, disregarding my advice, gave them to him.
And they were all armed with bludgeons. And after that he
put down the democracy. They in vain hoped to deliver the
poor from their state of slavery, and so now they are all of them
slaves to Pisistratus."
SOLON TO PISISTRATUS.
I am well assured that I should suffer no evil at your
hands. For before your assumption of the tyranny I was a
friend of yours, and now my case is not different from that of
any other Athenian who is not pleased with tyranny. And
whether it is better for them to be governed by one individual,
or to live under a democracy, that each person may decide
:8fi LIVES OP JIMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
according to bis own sentiments. And I admit that of all
tyrants you are the best. But I do not judge it to be good
for me to return to Athens, lest any one should blame me,
for, after having established equality of civil rights among tlie
Athenians, and after having refused to be a tyrant myself
when it was in my power, returning now and acquiescing in
what you are doing.
SOLON TO CR(ESUS.
XX. I thank you for your goodwill towards me. And, by
Minerva, if I did not think it precious above everything to
live in a democracy, I would willingly prefer living in your
palace with you to living at Athens, since Pisistratus has
made himself tyrant by force. But life is more pleasant to
me where justice and equality prevail universally. However,
I will come and see you, being anxious to enjoy your hospi-
. tality for a season.
LIFE OF CHILO.
I. Chilo was a Lacedaemonian, the son of Damagetus. He
composed verses in elegiac metre to the number of two
hundred : and it was a saying of his that a foresight of future
events, such as could be arrived at by consideration was the
virtue of a man. He also said once to his brother, who was
indignant at not being an ephor, while he himself was one,
" The reason is because I know how to bear injustice ; but
you do not." And he was made ephor in the fifty-fifth Olym-
piad ; but Pamphila says that it was in the fifty-sixth. And
he was made first ephor in the year of the archonship of
Euthydemus, as we are told by Sosicrates. Chilo was also
the first person who introduced the custom of joining the
ephors to the kings as their counsellors: though Satyrus
attributes this institution to Lycurgus. He, as Herodotus
says in his first book, when Hippocrates was sacrificing at
Olympia, and the cauldrons began to boil of their own accord,
advised him either to marry, or, if he were married already,
to discard his wife, and disown his children.
CHILO. 33
IL Thej tell a story, also, of his having asked ^sop ivhat
Jupiter was doing, and that iBlsop replied, ** He is lowering
what is high, and exalting what is low." Being asked in what
educated men differed from those who were illiterate, he said,
*' In good hopes." Having had the question put to him, What
was difficult, be said, " To he silent ahout secrets ; to make
good use of one's leisure, and to he ahle to. submit to in-
justice." And besides these three things he added further,
'* To rule one's tongue, especially at a banquet, and not to
speak ill of one's neighbours ; for if one does so one is sure
to hear what one will not like." He advised, moreover, " To
threaten no one ; for that is a womanly trick. To be more
prompt to go to one's friends in adversity than in prosperity.
To make but a moderate display at one's marriage. Not to
speak evil of the dead. To honour old age. — To keep a
watch upon one's self. — ^To prefer punishment to disgraceful
gain ; for the one is painful but once, but the other for one's
whole life. — ^Not to laugh at a person in misfortune. — If one
is strong to be also merciful, so that one's nei^bours may
respect one rather than fear one. — To learn how to regulate
one's own house well. — Not to let one's tongue outrun one's
sense. — To restrain anger. — Not to dislike divination. — Not
to desire what is impossible. — Not to make too much haste on
one's road. — When speaking not to gesticulate with the hand;
for that is like a madman. — To obey the laws. — ^To love
quiet."
And of all his songs this one was the most approved : —
Gold is best tested by a wbetstone hard.
Which gives a certain proof of purity ;
And gold itself acts as the test of men.
By which we know the temper of their minds.
III. They say, too, that when he was old he said, that he
vas not conscious of having ever done an unjust action
in his life ; but that he doubted about one thing. For
that once when judging in a friend's cause he had voted
himself in accordance with the law, but had persuaded a
friend to vote for his acquittal, in order that so he might
TOftiT^tflip the law, and yet save his friend.
IV. But he was most especially celebrated among the
Greeks for having delivered an early opinion about Cythera
an island belonging to Laconia. For having become ac-
34 UYES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHEBS.
quainted mth. its nature, be saici, '* I wish it had never
existed, or that, as it does exist, it were sunk at the bottom
of the sea." And his foresight was proved afterwards. For when
Demaratus was banished by the LacedadmoniEuis, he advised
Xerxes to keep his ships at that island : and Greece would
have been subdued, if Xerxes had taken the advice. And
afterwards Nicias, having reduced the island at the time of tho
Peloponnesian war, placed in it a garrison of Athenians, and.
did a great deal of harm to the Lacedaemonians.
V, He was very brief in his speech. On which account
Aristagoras, the Milesian, calls such conciseness, the Ghilo*
nean fashion ; and says that it was adopted by Branchus, who
built the temple among the BranchidaB. Chile was an old
man, about the fifty-second Olympiad, when ^sop, the feble
writer, flourished. And he died, as Hermippus says, at Pisa,
after embracing his son, who had gained the victory in boxing
at the Olympic games. The cause of his death was excess of
joy, and weakness caused by extreme old age. All the
spectators who were present at the games attended his
funeral, paying him the highest honours. And we have written
the following epigram on him :—
I thank you, brightest Pollux, that the son
Of ChUo wears the wreath of victory ;
Nor need we grieve if at the glorious sight
His father died. May such my last end be !
And the following inscription is engraved on his statue : —
The warlike Sparta called this Chilo son,
The wisest man of all the seven sages.
One of his sayings was, " Suretyship, and then destruction."
The following letter of his is also extant : —
CHILO TO PEBIANDER.
You desire me to abandon the expedition against the
emigrants, as you yourself will go forth. But I think that a
sole governor is in a slippery position at home ; and I consider
tliat tyrant a fortunate man who dies a natural death in his.
own house.
PJTTACUS. 35
LIFE OF PITTACUS.
I. PiTTACUS wasanativeof Mitylene, and son of Hyrradius.
But Duris says, that his father was a Thracian. He, in union
with the brothers of Alcaeus, put down Melanchrus the tyrant
of Lesbos. And in the battle which took place between the
Athenians and Mitylenseans on the subject of the district of
Achilis, he was the Mitylensean general ; the Atheniar
commander being Phrynon, a Pancratiast, who had gained the
victory at Olympia. Pittacus agreed to meet him in single
combat, and having a net under his shield, he entangle^
Phrynon without his being aware of it beforehsmd, and so,
having killed him, he preserved the district in dispute to his
countrymen. But Apollodorus, in his Chronicles, says, that
subsequently, the Athenians had a trial with the Mitylenseans
about the district, and that the cause was submitted to Peri-
ander, who decided it in favour of the Athenians.
II. In consequence of this victory the Mitylenseans held
Pittacus in the greatest honour, and committed the supreme
power into his hands. And he held it for ten years, and then,
when he had brought the city and constitution into good order,
he resigned the government. And he lived ten years after
that, and the Mitylenseans assigned him an estate, which he
consecrated to the God, and to this day it is called the Pitta-
clan land. But Sosicrates says that he cut off a small portion
of it, saying that half was more than the whole ; and when
Croesus offered him some money he would not accept it, as he
said that he had already twice as much as he wanted ; for that
he had succeeded to the inheritance of his brother, who had
died without children.
III. But Pamplula says, in the second book of his Com-
mentaries, that he had a son named Tyrrhseus, who was killed
while sitting in a barber's shop, at Cyma, by a brazier, who
threw an axe at him ; and that the Cymseans sent the murderer
to Pittacus, who when he had learnt what had been done,
dismissed the man, saying, '* Pardon is better than repent-
ance." But Heraclitus says that the true story is, that he had
got Alcseus into his power, and that he released him, saying,
"Pardon is better than punishment.'* He was also a law-
D 3
36 LITES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
giver ; and he made a law tbat if a man committed a crime
while drunk, he should have douhle punishment ; in the hope
of deterring men from getting drunk, as wine was veiy
plentiful in the island.
IV. It was a saying of his that it was a hard thing to he
good, and this apophthegm is quoted hj Simonides, who says,
" It Was a saying of Pittacus, that it is a hard thing to he
really a good man.** Plato also mentions it in his Protagoras.
Another of his sayings was, ** Even the Gods cannot strive
against necessity.** Another was, " Power shows the man.*'
Being once asked what was best, he replied, " To do what one
is doing at the moment well." When Crcesus put the question
to him, " What is the greatest power ?'* " The power,** he
replied, " of the variegated wood,** meaning the wooden tablets
of the laws. He used to say too, that there were some victories
without bloodshed. He said once to a man of Phocsea, who
was saying that we ought to seek out a virtuous man, '* But
if you seek ever so much you will not find one.*' Some people
once asked him what thing was very grateful ? and he replied,
" Time.**— What was uncertain ? "The future.*'— What was
trusty ? " The land.'*— What was treacherous ? " The sea '*
Another saying of his was, that it was the part of wise men,
before difficult circumstances arose, to provide for their not
arising ; but that it was the part of brave men to make the
best of existing circumstances. He used to say too, " Do
not say before hand what you are going to do; for if you
fail, you will be laughed at." " Do not reproach a man
with his misfortunes, fearing lest Neinesis may overtake
you." " If you have received a deposit, restore it.'* " Forbear
to speak evil not only of your friends, but also of your enemies."
*• Practise piety, with temperance.*' " Cultivate truth, good
faith, experience, cleverness, sociability, and industry.**
V. He wrote also some songs, of which the following is the
most celebrated one : —
The wis© will only fiace the wicked man,
With bow in hand well bent,
And quiver full of arrows —
For 8uck a tongae as his says nothing true,
Prompted by a wily heart
Tq ufier double speeches.
He also composed six hundred verses in elegiac metre ; and
PITTACUS. 37
he wrote a treatise in prose, on Laws, addressed to his country-
men.
VI. He flourished about the forty-second Olympiad ; and
he died when Aristomenes was Archon, in the third year of
the fifty-second Olympiad ; having lived more than seventy
years, being a very old man. And on his tomb is this in-
scription : —
Lesbos who bore him here, with tears doth bury
Hyrradius' worthy son, wise Pittacos.
Another saying of his was, " Watch your opportunity."
VII. There was also another Pittacus, a lawgiver, as Favo-
rinus tells us in the first book of his Commentaries; and
Demetrius says so too, in his Essay on Men and Things of the
same name. And that other Pittacus was called Pittacus the less.
VIII. But it is said that the wise Pittacus otice, when a
young man consulted him on the subject of marriage, madd
him die following answer, which is thus given by Callimachus
in his Epigrams.
Hyrradius' prudent son, old Pittacus
The pride of Mitylene, once was asked
By an Atamean stranger ; '' Tell me, sage,
I have two marriages proposed to me ;
One maid my equal is in birth and riches ;
The other's far above me ; — ^which is best ?
Advise me now which shall 1 take to wife r
Thus spoke the stranger ; but the aged prince,
Kaising his old man's sta^ before his face,
Said, '' These will tell you all you want to know ;"
And pointed to some boys, who with quick lashes
Were driving whipping tops along the street.
" Follow their steps,** said he ; sb he went near them
And heard them say, " Let each now mind his own." —
So when the stranger heard the boys speak thus,
He pondered on their words, and laid aside
Ambitious thoughts of an unequal marriage.
As then he took to shame the poorer bride.
So too do you, 0 reader, mind thy own.
And it seems that he may have here spoken from experience,
for his own wife was of more noble birth than himself, since she
was the sister of Draco, the son of Penthilus ; and she gave
herself great airs, and tyrannized over him.
38 LIVES OP EMINENT PHILOSOPEER8.
IX. Alcfleas calls Pittacus ffa^dirovi and ed^airo^, because be
was splay-footed, and used to drag bis feet in walking; he also
called him ;^«/^o«*^^ijf, because he bad scars on bis feet which
were called xu^dhtg. And yab^^, implying that he gave
himself airs without reason. And (plttfKuv and ydcr^m, because
he was fat. He also called him Z,o(podo^tBag, because he had
weak eyes, and aya<rugro;, because he was lazy and dirty. He
used to grind com for the sake of exercise, as Clearchus, the
philosopher, relates.
X. There is a letter of his extant, which runs thus :— »
PITTACUS TO CRCESUS.
You invito me to come to Lydia in order that I may see
your riches; but I, even without seeing them, do not doubt that
the son of Alyattes is the richest of monarchs. But I should
get no good by going to Sardis ; for I do not want gold myself,
but what I have is sufficient for myself and my companions.
Still, I will come, in order to become acquainted with you as a
hospitable man.
LIFE OF BIAS.
I. Bias was a citizen of Priene, and the son of Teutamus, and
by Satyrus he is put at the head of the seven wise men. Some
Jni^rTlrm thlt he was one of the richest men of the city ;
but others say that he was only a settler. And Phanodicus
says, that he ransomed some Messenian maidens who had been
taken prisoners, and educated them as his own daughters, and
gave them dowries, and then sent them back to Messina to their
fathers. And when, as has been mentioned before, the tripod
was found near Athens by some fishermen, the brazen tripod
1 mean, which bore the inscription — "For the Wise ;" then
Satyrus says that the damsels (but others, such as Phano-
dicus, say that it was their father,) came into the assembly,
and said that Bias was the wise man — ^recounting what he had
done to them': and so the tripod was sent to him. But Bias,
when he saw it, said that it was Apollo who was " the Wise,'*"
and would not receive the tripod.
BIAS. 39
II. Bat others say that he consecrated it at Thebes to Her-
cules, because he himself was a descendant of the Thebans,
who had sent a colony to Priene, as Phanodicus relates. It is
said also that when Alyattes was besieging Priene, Bias fattened
up two males, and drove them into his camp ; and that the
king, seeing the condition that the mules were in, was astonished
at their being able to spare food to keep the brute beasts so well,
and so he desired to make peace witb them, and sent an am-
bassador to them. On this Bias, having made some heaps
of sand, and put corn on the top, showed them to the convoy ;
and Alyattes, hearing from him what he had seen, made peace
mth. the people of Priene ; and then, when he sent to Bias, '
desiring him to come quickly to him, " Tell Alyattes, from
me," ha replied, " to eat onions ;" — which is the same as if he
had said, " go and weep."
III. It is said that he was veiy energetic and eloquent when
pleading causes ; but that he always reserved his talents for
the right side. In reference to which Demodicus of Alerius
uttered the following enigmatical saying — " If you are a judge,
give a Prienian decision." And Hipponax says, " More ex*
cellent in his decisions than Bias of Priene.'* Now he died in
this manner : —
ly. Having pleaded a cause for some one when he was ex-
ceedingly old, aiter he had finished speaking, he leaned back
with his head on the bosom of his daughter's son ; and after the
advocate on the opposite side had spoken, and the judges had
given their decision in favour of Bias's client, when the court
broke up he was found dead on his grandson^s bosom. And
the city buried him in the greatest magnificence, and put over
him this inscription —
Beneath this stone lies Bias, who was bom
In the illustrious Prienian land,
The glory of the whole Ionian race.
And we ourselves have also written an epigram on him —
Here Bias lies, whom, when the hoary snow
Had crowned his aged temples, Mercury
Unpitying led to Pluto's darken'd realms.
He pleaded his friend's cause, and then reclin'd
In his child's arms, repos'd in lasting sleep.
V. He also wrote about two thousand verses on Ionia, to
'40 LIVES OP EMINENT PHILOSOPHEBS.
show in what matter a man might best arrive at happiness ; and
of all his poetical sayings these have the greatest reputation :— *
Seek to please all the citizens, even though
Your house may be in an ungracious city.
For such a course will favour win from all :
But haughty mannen oft produce destructioii.
And this one too : —
Qreat strength of body is the gift of nature ;
But to be able to advise whatever
Is most expedient for one's country's good.
Is the peculiar work of sense and wisdom.
Another is; —
Great riches come to many mdn by chance.
He used also to say that that man was unfortunate who
could not support misfortune; and that it is a disease of the
mind to desire what was impossible, and to have no regard for
the misfortunes of others. Being asked what was difficult,' he
said—** To bear a change of fortune for the worse with magna-
nimity." Once he was on a voyage with some impious men,
and the vessel was overtaken by a storm ; so they began to in-
voke the assistance of the Gods ; on which he said, " Hold your
tongues, lest they should find out that you are in this ship."
When he was asked by an impious man what piety was, he
made no reply ; and when his questioner demanded the reason
of his silence, he said, ** I am silent because you are putting
questions about things with which you have no concern."
Being asked what was pleasant to men, he replied, "Hope."
It was a saying of his that it was more agreeable to decide
between enemies than between friends ; for that of friends, one
was sure to become an enemy to him; but that of enemies, one
was sure to become a friend. When the question was put to
him, what a man derived pleasure while he was doing, he
said, " While acquiring gain." He used to say, too, that men
ought to calculate life both as if they were fated to live a long
and a short time : and that they ought to love one another as if
at a future time they would come to hate one another; for that
most men were wicked. He used also to give the following
pieces of advice : — " Choose the course which you adopt with
deliberation ; but when you have adopted it, then persevere in
CLEOBULUS. 41
it with fLrmness. — Do not speak fast, for that shows folly. —
Love prudence. — Speak of the Gods as they are. — Do not
praise an undeserving man because of his riches. — Accept of
things, having procured them by persuasion, not by force. —
Whatever good fortune befalls you, attribute it to the gods.
— Cherish wisdom as a means of travelling from youth to
old age, for it is more lasting than any other possession."
YI. Hipponax also mentions Bias, as has been said before ;
and Heraclitus too, a man who was not easily pleased, has
praised him ; saying, in Priene there lived Bias the son of
Teutamus, whose reputation is higher than that of the others ;
and the Prienians consecrated a temple to him which is ^called
the Teutamium. A saying of his was, ** Most men are
wicked."
LIFE OF CLEOBULUS.
I. Cleobulus was a native of Lindus, and the son of
Evagoras ; but according to Duris he was a Carian ; others
again trace his family back to Hercules. He is reported to
have been eminent for personal strength and beauty, and to
have studied philosophy in Egypt ; he had a daughter named
Cleobulina, who used to compose enigmas in hexameter verse,
and she is mentioned by Cratinus in his play of the same
name, except that the title is written in the plural number.
They say also that he restored the temple of Minerva which
had been built by Danaus.
IT. Cleobtdus composed songs and obscure sayings in verse
to the number of three thousand lines, and some say that it was
he who composed the epigram on Midas.
I am a brazen maiden lying here
Upon the tomb of Midas. And as long
As water flows, as trees are green with leaves,
As the sun shines and eke the silver moon,
As long as rivers flow, luid billows roar,
So long will I upon this much wept tomb,
Tell passers by, ** Midas lies buried here.*'
And as an evidence of this epigram being by him they quote
a song of Simonides, which runs thus : —
4Ji LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
What men possessed of sense
Would ever pnuse the Lindian Cleobulns ?
Who could compare a statue made by man
To everflowing streams,
To blushing flowers of spring,
To the sun's rays, to beams o' the golden mom,
And to the ceaseless waves of mighty Ocean ?
All things are trifling when compared to God.
While men beneath their hands can crush a stone ;
So that such sentiments can only come from fools.
And the epigram cannot possibly be by Homer, for he lived
many years, as it is said, before Midas.
III. There is also the following enigma quoted in the
Commentaries of Pamphila, as the work of Cleobulus : —
There was one father and he had twelve daughters,
Each of his daughters had twice thirty children.
But most unlike in figure and complexion ;
For some were white, and others black to view.
And though immortal they all taste of death. •
And the solution is, " the year."
IV. Of his apophthegms, the following are the most cele-
lehrated. Ignorance and talkativeness bear the chief sway
among men. Opportunity will be the most powerful. Cherish
not a thought. Do not be fickle, or ungrateful. He used to
say too, that men ought to give their daughters in marriage
while they were girls in age, but women in sense ; as indicating
by this that girls ought to be well educated. Another of his
sayings was, that one ought to serve a friend that he may be-
come a greater friend ; and an enemy, to make him a friend.
And that one ought to guard against giving one s Mends occsr
sion to blame one, and one's enemies opportunity of plotting
against one. Also, when a man goes out of his house, he should
consider what he is going to do : and when he comes home
again he should consider what he has done. He used also to
advise men to keep their bodies in health by exercise. — To be
fond of hearing rather than of talking.— To he fond of learning
rather than unwiUing to learn. — ^To speak well of people. — To
seek virtue and eschew vice. — To avoid injustice. — ^To give the
best advice in one's power to one's country. — ^To be superior to
pleasure. — To do nothing by force. — To instruct one's children,
PEBIANDEB. 43
— To be ready for reconciliation after quarrels. — Not to caress
one's wife, nor to quarrel with her when strangers are present,
for that to do the one is a sign of folly, and to do the latter is
downright madness. — Not, to chastise a servant while elated
with drink, for so doing one will appear to be drunk one's self. —
To marry 6^m among one's equals, for if one takes a wife of a
higher rank than one's self, one will have one's connexions for
one's masters. — Not to laugh at those who are being reproved,
for so one will be detested by them. — Be not haughty when
prosperous. — Be not desponding when in difficulties. — Learn to
bear the changes of fortune with magnanimity.
V. And he died at a great age, having lived seventy years,
and this inscription was put over him : —
His oountiy, Lmdus, this fair sea-girt city
Bewails wise Cleobulus here entombed.
VI. One of his sayings was, " Moderation is the best thing.'*
He also wrote a letter to Solon in these terms : —
CLEOBULUS TO SOLON.
You have many friends, and a home everywhere, but yet
I think that Xiindus will be the most agreeable habitiition for.
Solon, since it enjoys a democratic government, and it is a ma-
ritime island, and whoever dwells in it has nothing to fear from
Pisistratus, and you will have friends flock to you from all
quarters.
LIFE OF PERIANDER.
I
I. Pertanbbr was a Corinthian, the son of Cypselus, of the
family of the Heraclidas. He married Lyside (whom he
himself called Melissa), the daughter of Procles the tyrant of
Epidaurus, and of Eristhenea the daughter of Aristocrates, and
sister of Aristodemus, who governed nearly all Arcadia, as He*
raclides Ponticus says in his Treatise on Dominion and had by
her two sons Cypselus and Lycophron, the younger of whom was
a clever boy, but the elder was deficient in intellect At a sub-
sequent period he in a rage either kicked or threw his wife down
stairs when she was pregnant, and so killed her, being wrought
44 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
upon by the false accusations of bis concubines, whom be after-
wards burnt alive. And the child, whose name was Lyoophix>n,
he sent away to Corcyra because he grieved for his mother.
II. But afterwards, when he was now extremely old, he sent
for liim back again, in order that he might succeed to the
tyranny. But t^e Corcyreans, anticipating his intention, put
him to death, at which he was greatly enraged, and sent their
children to Corcyra to be made eunucks of ; and when the shift
came near to Samos, the youths, having made supplications to
Juno, were saved by the Samians. And he fell into despondency
and died, being eighty years old. Sosicrates says that he died
forty-one years be&re Croesus, in the last year pf the forty-
eighth Olympiad. Herodotus, in the first book of his History,
says that he was connected by ties of hospitality with Thrasy-
bulus the tyrant of Miletus. And Aristippus, in the first bdok
of his Treatise on Ancient Luxury, tells the following story
of him ; that his mother Cratea fell in love with him, and in*
troduced herself secretly into his bed ; and he was delighted ;
but when the truth was discovered he became very oppressive
to all his subjects, because he was grieved at the discoveiy.
Ephorus relates that he made a vow that, if he gained the
victory at Olympia in the chariot race, he would dedicate a
golden statue to the God. Accordingly he gained the victory ;
but being in want of gold, and seeing the women at some
national festival beautifully adorned, he took away their golden
ornaments, and then sent the offering which he had vowed.
III. But some writers say that he was anxious that his tomb
should not be known, and that with that object he adopted the
following contrivance. He ordered two young men to go out
by night, indicating a particular road by which they were to go,
and to kill the first man they met, and bury him ; after them
he sent out four other men who were to kOl and bury them.
Again he sent out a still greater number against these four,
with similar instructions. And in this manner he put himself
in the way of the first pair» and was slain, and the Corinthians
erected a cenotaph over him with the following intcfiptioii t*«<
The sea-beat land of Corinth in her bosom.
Doth here embrace her ruler Periander,
Greatest of all men for his wealth and wisdom.
We ourselves have also written an epigram upon him : —
PERIANDEB. 45
Grieve not when disappointed of a wish,
But be content with what the Gods may give you —
For the great Periander died unhappy,
At failing in an object he desired.
IV. It was a saying of his that we ought not to do anything
for the sake of money ; for that we ought only to acquire such
gains as are allowable. He composed apophthegms in verse to
the number of two thousand lines ; and said that those who
wished to wield absolute power in safety, should be guarded by
the good will of their countrymen, and not by arms. And
once, being asked why he assumed tyrannical power, he replied,
" Because, to abdicate it voluntarily, and to have it taken from
one, are both dangerous." The following sayings also belong
to him : — ^Tranquillity is a good thing. — Rashness is danger-
ous.— Gain is disgraceful. — Democracy is better than tyranny.
' — Pleasures are transitory, but honour is immortal.— *Be
moderate when prosperous, but prudent when unfortunate. —
Be the same to your friends when they are prosperous, and
when they are unfortunate. — Whatever you agree to do, observe
— ^Do not divulge secrets. — Punish not only those who do
wrong, but those who intend to do so.
V. This prince was the first who had body-guards, and who
changed a legitimate power into a tyranny ; and he would not
allow any one who chose to live in his city, as Euphorus and
Aristotle tell us.
VI. And he flourished about the thirty-eighth Olympiad, and
enjoyed absolute power for forty years. But Sotion, and He-
radides, and Pamphila, in the fifth book of her Commen-
taries, says that there were two Perianders ; the one a tyrant,
and the other a wise man, and a native of Ambracia. And
Neanthes of Gyzicus makes the same assertion, adding, that
the two men were cousins to one another. And Aristotle says,
that it was the Corinthian Periander who was the wise one ;
but Plato contradicts him. The saying — " Practice does
everythingy*' is his. He it was, also, who proposed to cut
through the Isthmus.
VII. The following letter df lus is quoted : —
FKRIANOEB TO THE WISE MEN.
I give great thanks to Apollo of Delphi that my letters are
46 LIVES OF BBaNENT PHILOSOPHERS.
able to determine you all to meet together at Corinth ; and I
vnYL receive you all, as you may be well assured, in a manner
that becomes free citizens. I hear also that last year you met
at Sardis, at the court of the King of Lydia. So now do not
hesitate to come to me, who am the tyrant of Corinth ; foj the
' Corinthians will all be delighted to see you come to the house
of Periander.
VIII. There is this letter too : —
PERIANDEB TO PBOCLES.
The injury of my wife was unintended by me ; and you
have done wrong in alienating from me the mind of my child.
I desire you, therefore, either to restore me to my place in his
afifections, or I will revenge myself on you ; for I have myself
made atonement for the death of your daughter, by burning in
her tomb the clothes of all the Corinthian women.*
IX. Thiasybulus also wrote him a letter in the following
terms :^
I have given no answer to your messenger; but having
taken him into a field, I struck with my walking-stick all the
highest ears of corn, and cut off their tops, while he was walking
with me. And lie wll report to you, if you ask him, every-
thing which he heard or saw while with me; and do you act
accordingly if you wish to preserve your power safely, taking
off the most eminent of the citizens, whether he seems an
enemy to you or not, as even his companions are deservedly
objects of suspicion to a man possessed of supreme power.
LIFE OF ANACHARSIS, THE SCYTHIAN.
I. Anachabsis the Scythian was the son of Gnurus, and
the brother of Caduides the king of the Scythians ; but his
mother was a Grecian woman ; owing to which circumstance
he understood both languages.
II. He vnrote about the laws existing among the Scythians,
and also about those in force among the Greeks, urging men
* Herodotus mentions the case of Periander's children, iii 50, and
the death of his wife, and his burning the clothes of all the Corinthian
women, v. 92.
ANACHARSIS. 47
to adopt a temperate course of life; and he wrote also about war,
his works being in verse, and amounting to eight hundred lines.
He gave occasion for a proTerb, because he used great freedom
of speech, so that people called such freedom the Scythian
conversation.
. III. But Sosicrates says that he came to Athens in the
forty-seventh Olympiad, in the archonship of Eucrates. And
Hermippus asserts that he came to Solon's house, and ordered
one of the servants to go and tell his master that Anacharsis was
come to visit him, and was desirous to see him, and, if possible,
to enter into relations of hospitaUty with him. But when the
servant had given the message, he was ordered by Solon to reply
to hinri that, *' Men generally limited such alliances to their
own countrymen.'* In reply to this Anacharsis entered the
house, and told the servant that now he was in Solon's country^
and that it was quite consistent for them to become connected
with one another in this way. On this, Solon admired the
readiness of the man, and admitted him, and made him one of
his greatest friends.
IV. But after some time, when he had returned to Scythia,
aad shown a purpose to abrogate the existing institutions of his
coantry, being exceedingly earnest, in his fondness for Grecian'
customs, he was shot by his brother while he was out hunting,
and so he died, saying, '* That he was saved on account of the
sense and eloquence which he had brought from Greece, but
slain in consequence of envy in his own family." Some, how-
ever, relate that he was slain while performing some Grecian
sacrificatory rites. And we have written this epigram on him : —
When Anacharsis to his land returned.
His mind was tum'd, so that he wished to make
His countrymen all live in Grecian fashion —
So, ere his words had well escaped his lips,
A winged arrow bore him to the Qods.
V, He said that a vine bore three bunches of grapes. The
first, the bunch of pleasure ; the second, that of drunkenness ;
the third, that of disgust. He also said that he marvelled that
among the Greeks, those who were skilful in a thing contend
together ; but those who have no such skill act as judges of the
contest. Being once asked how a person might be made not
fond of drinking, he said, " If he always keeps in view the
indecorous actions of drunken men." He used also to say,
48 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHEBS.
that he marvelled how the Greeks, who make laws against
those who hehaye with insolence, honour Athletae because of
their beating one another. When he had been informed that
the sides of a ship were four fingers thick, he said, ** That those
who sailed in one were removed by just that distance from
death. He used to say that oil was a provocative of madness,
*' because Athlet», when anointed in the oil, attacked one
another with mad fiuy.**
" How is it,'* he used to say, " that those who forbid men
to speak falsely, tell lies openly in their vintners' shops?"
It was a saying of his» that he " marvelled why the Greeks, at
the beginning of a banquet, drink out of small cups, but when
they have drunk a good deal, then they turn to lajtge goblets."
And this inscription is on his statues — '* Eestrain your tongues,
your appetites, and your passions." He was once asked
if the flute was known among the Scjrthians ; and he said, '* No,
nor the vine either." At another time, the question was put
to him, which was the safest kind of vessel? and he said,
*' That which is brought into dock."* He said, too, that the
strangest things that he had seen among the Greeks was, that
'* They left the smoke* in the mountains, and carried the wood
down to their cities." Once, when he was asked, which were
the more numerous, the living or the dead? he said, " Under
which head do you class those who are at sea." Being re-
proached by an Athenian for being a Scythian, he said, " Well,
my country is a disgrace to me, but you are a disgrace to your
country.'' When he was asked what there was among men
which was both good and bad» he replied, ** The tongue.*' He
used to say " That it was better to have one friend of great
value, than many friends who were good for nothing." Another
saying of his was, that " The forum was an established place
for men to cheat one another, and behave covetously." Being
once insulted by a young man at a drinking party, he said,
" O, young man, if now that you are young you cannot bear
wine, when you are old you will have to bear water."
YI. Of things which are of use in life, he is said to have
been the inventor of the anchor, and of the potters wheel.
* Some propose to read Kaprrbv, fruU, instead of cairvdv, 9mohe, here ;
others explain this saying as meaning that the Greeks avoided houses
on the hills in order not to be annoyed with the smoke from the low
cottages, and yet did not use coal, but wood, which made more smoke.
MTSON. 49^
VII. The following letter of his is extant : —
ANACHAB8IS TO CB(ESUS.
O king of the Lydians, I am come to the country of the
Greeks, in order to become acquainted with their customs and
institutions ; but I have no need of gold, and shall be quite
contented if I return to Scythia a better man than I left it.
However I will come to Sardis, as I think it very desirable to
become a friend of yours.
LIFE OF MYSON.
#
I. Myson, the son of Strymon, as Sosicrates states, quoting
Hermippus as his authority, a Chenean by birth, of some
^tsean or Ltaconian village, is reckoned one of the seven wise
men, and they say that his father was tyrant of his country. It
is said by some writers that, when Anacharsis inquired if any
one was wiser than he, the priestess at Delphi gave the
answer which has been' already quoted in the Hfe of Thales
in reference to Chile : —
I say that Myson the ^taean sage^
The citizen of Chen, is wiser far
In his deep mind th^-n you.
And that he, having taken a great deal of trouble, came to the
village, and found him in the summer season fitting a handle
to a plough, and he addressed him, '* O Myson, this is not
now ihe season for the plough." '' Indeed," said he, " it is a
capital season for preparing one;" but others say, that the
words of the oracle are the Etean sage, and they raise the ques-
tion, what the word Etean means. So Parmenides says, that
it is a borough of Laconia, of which Myson was a native;
but Sosicrates, in his Successions says, that he was an Etean
on his father's side, and a Chenean by his mother's. But
Euthyphron, the son of Heraclides Ponticus, says that he was
a Cretan, for that Etea was a city of Crete.
II. And Anaulaus says that he was an Arcadian. Hipponax
also mentions him, saying, ** And Myson, whom Apollo stated
E
50 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
to be the most pradent of all men." But Aristoxenus, in his
Miscellanies, says that his habits were not very different from
those of Timon and Apemantus, for that he was a misanthrope.
And that accordingly he was one day found in Lacedsemon
laughing by himself in a solitary place, and when some one
came up to him on* a sudden and asked him why he laughed
when he was by himself, he said, "For that very reason."
Aristoxenus also says thjit he was not thought much of,
because he was not a native of any city, but only of a village,
and that too one of no great note ; and according to him, it is
on account of this obscurity of his that some people attribute
his sayings and doings to Pisistratus the tyrant, but he excepts
Plato the philosopher, for he mentions Myson in his Prota-
goras, placing him among the wise men instead of Periander.
^ III. It used to be a common saying of his that men ought
not to seek for things in words, but for words in things ; for
that things are not made on account of words, but that words
are put together for the sake of things.
IV. He died when he had lived ninety-seven years.
LIFE OF EPIMENIDES.
I. Epimenides, as Theopompus and many other writers tell
us, was the son of a man named Phsedrus, but some call him
the son of Dosiadas ; and others of Agesarchus. He was a
Cretan by birth, of the city of Gnossus ; but because he let his
hair grow long, he did not look like a Cretan.
II. He once, when he was sent by his father into the fields
to look for a sheep, turned out of the road at mid-day and lay
down in a certain cav^e and fell asleep, and slept there fifty-
seven years ; and after that, when he awoke, he went on looking
for the sheep, thinking that he had been taking a short nap ;
but as he could not find it he went on to the field and there he
found everything changed, and the estate in another person's
possession, and so he came back again to the city in great
perplexity, and as he was going into his own house he met
some people who asked him who he was, until at last he found
EPIMENIDES. 51
his youDger brother who had now become an old man, and
from him be learnt all the tiiith.
III. And when he was recognized he was considered by the
Greeks as a person especially beloved by the Gods, on which
account when the Athenians were aflflicted by a plague, and
tlie priestess at Delphi enjoined them to purify their city,
they sent a ship and Nicias the son of Niceratus to Crete, to
invite Epimenides to Athens ; and he, coming there in the forty-
sixth Olympiad, piurified the city and eradicated the plague for
that time ; he took some black sheep and some white ones and
led them up to the Areopagus, and from thence he let them
go wherever they chose, having ordered the attendants to
follow them, and wherever any one of them lay down they
were to sacrifice him to the God who was the patron of the
spot, and so the evil was stayed ; and owing to this one may
even now find in the different boroughs of the Athenians
altars without names, which are a sort of memorial of the
propitiation of the Gods that then took place. Some said that*
the cause of the plague was the pollution contracted by the
city in the matter of Cylon, and that Epimenides pointed out
to the Athenians how to get rid of it, and that in consequence
they put to death two young men, Oratinus and Ctesilius, and
that thus the pestilence was put an end to.
III. And the Athenians passed a vote to give him a talent
and a ship to convey him back to Crete, but he would not
accept the money, but made a treaty <^ friendship and alliance
between the Gnossians and Athenians.
IV. And not long after he had returned home he died, as
Fhlegon relates in his book on long-lived people, after he had
lived a hundred and fifty-seven years ; but as the Cretans
report he had lived two hundred and ninety-nine ; but as
Xenophones the Colophonian, states that he had heard it
reported, he was a hundred and fifty-four years old when he
died.
V. He wrote a poem of five thousand verses on the Gene-
riEition and Theogony of the Curetes and Corybantes, and
another poem of six thousand five hundred verses on the
building of the Argo and the expedition of Jason to Colchis.
VI. He also wrote a treatise in prose on the Sacrifices
in Crete, and the Cretan Constitution, and on Minos and,
Hhodamanthus, occupying four thousand lines.
eU
52 UVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHEBfi.
VI. Likewise he built at Athens the temple which is there
dedicated to the yenerable goddesses, as Lobon the Augur says
in his book on Poets ; and he is said to have been Uie first
person who purified houses and lands, and who built temples.
VII. There are some people who assert that he did not
sleep for the length of time that has been mentioned above,
but that he was absent from his countiy for a considerable
period, occupying himself with the anatomisation and ex-
amination of roots.
VIII. A letter of his is quoted, addressed to Solon the
lawgiver, in which he discusses the constitution which Minos
gave the Cretans. But Demetrius the Magnesian, in his
treatise on Poets and Prose writers of the same name as one
another, attempts to prove that the letter is a modem one,
and is not written in the Cretan but in the Attic dialect, and
the new Attic too.
IX. But I have also discovered another letter of his which
runs thus : —
EPIMENIDES TO SOLON.
Be of good cheer, my friend ; for if Pisistratus had imposed
his laws on the Athenians, they being habituated to slaveiy
and not accustomed to good laws previously, he would have
maintained his dominion for ever, succeeding easily in en-
slaving his fellow countrymen ; but as it is, he is lording it over
men who are no cowards, but who remember the precepts of
Solon and are indignant at their bonds, and who will not
endure the supremacy of a tyrant. But if Pisistratus does
possess the city to-day, still I have no expectation that the
supreme power will ever descend to his children. For it is
impossible that men who have lived in freedom and in the
enjoyment of most excellent laws should be slaves perma-
nency ; but as for yourself, do not you go wandering about at
random, but come and visit me, for here there is no supreme
ruler to be formidable to you ; but if while you are wandering
about any of the friends of Pisistratus should fiall in with you,
I fear you might suffer some misfortune.
He then wrote thus : —
X. But Demetrius says that some writers report that he
used to receive food from the nymphs and keep it in a
bullock's hoof; and that eating it in small quantities he never
PHERECYDEa 63
required any evacuations, and was never seen eating. And
Timsus mentions him in his second book.
XI. Some authors say also that the Cretans sacrifice to him
as a god, for they say that be was the wisest of men ; and
accordingly, that when he saw the port of Munychia,* at
Athens, he said that the Athenians did not know how many
evils that place would bring upon them : since, if they did,
they would tear it to pieces with their teeth ; and he said this
a long time before the event to which he alluded. It is said
also, that he at first called himself JEajcus ; and that he fore-
told to the Lacedsemonians the defeat which they should suffer
from the Arcadians ; and that he pretended that he had lived
several times. But Theopompus, in his Strange Stories, says
that when he was building the temple of the Nymphs, a voice
burst forth from heaven ; — " Oh ! Epimenides, build this
temple, not for the Nymphs but for Jupiter.*' He also fore-
told to the Cretans the defeat of the Lacedaemonians by the
Arcadians, as has been said before. And, indeed, they were
beaten at Orchomenos.
XII. He pretended also, that he grew old rapidly, in the
same number of days as he had been years asleep ; at least,
BO Theopompus says. But Mysonianus, in his Coincidences,
says, that the Cretans call him one of the Curetes. And the
Lacedasmonians preserve his body among them, in obedience
to some oracle, as Sosilius the LacedsBmonian says.
XIII. There were also two other Epimenides, one the
genealogist ; the other, the man who wrote a history of Rhodes
in the Doric dialect
LIFE OF PHERECYDES.
I* Phrbecydes was a Syrian, the son of Babys, and, as Alex-
ander says, in his Successions, he had been a pupil of Pittacus.
* This refers to the result of the war which Antipater, who became
i^ent of Macedonia on the death of Alexander the Great, carried on
against the confederacy of Greek states, of which Athens was the
head ; and in which, after having defeated them at Cranon, he com-
pelled the Athenians to aboUsh the democracyi and to admit a garrison
into Mnnychia*
54 LI7ES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
II. Theopompus says that he was the first person who ever
wrote among the Greeks on the subject of Natural Philosophy
and the Gods. And there are many maryellous stories told of
him. For it is said that he was walking along the sea-shore
at Samos, and that seeing a ship sailing by with a fair wind, he
said that it would soon sink ; and presently it sank before their
eyes. At another time he was drinking some water which had
been drawn up out of a well, and he foretold that within three
days there would be an earthquake ; and there was one. And
as he was going up to Olympia, and had arrived at Messene,
he advised his entertainer, Ferilaus, to migrate from the city
with all his family, but that Perilaus would not be guided by
him ; and afterwards Messene was taken.
III. And he is said to have told the LacedaBmonians to
honour neither gold nor silver, as Theopompus says in his
Marvels ; and it is reported that Hercules laid this injunc-
tion on him in a dream, and that the same night he appeared
also to the kings of Sparta, and enjoined them to be guided by
Pherecydes ; but some attribute these stories to Pythagoras.
IV. And Hermippus relates that when there was a war
between the Ephesians and Magnesians, he, wishing the Ephe-
sians to conquer, asked some one, who was passing by, from
whence he came ? and when he said, " From Ephesus," " Drag
me now," said he, " by the legs, and place me in the terrritory
of the Magnesians, and tell your fellow countrymen to bury me
there after they have got the victory ; and that he went and re-
ported that Pherecydes had given him this order. And so they
went forth the next day and defeated the Magnesians ; and as
Pherecydes was dead, they buried him there, and paid him
very splendid honours.
V. But some writers say that he went to Delphi, and threw
himself down from the Corycian hill ; Aristoxenus, in his
History of Pythagoras and his Friends, says that Pherecydes
fell sick and died, and was buried by Pythagoras in Delos ;
But others say that ho died of the lousy disease ; and when
Pythagoras came to see him, and asked him how he was, he put
his finger through the door, and said, " You may see by my
skin." And from this circumstance that expression passed
into a proverb among the philosophers, when alFairs are going
on badly : and those who apply it to affairs that are go ng on
well, make a blunder. He used to say, also, that ti^e Gods
call their table Ouat^tg.
PHEKECTDES; 55
VI. But Andron, the Ephesian, sajs that there were two
men of the name of Fherecydes, both Syrians : one an astro-
nomer, and the other a writer on God and the Divine Nature ;
and that this last was the son of Babjs, who was also the master
of Pythagoras. But Eratosthenes asserts that there was but
one, who was a Syrian ; and that the other Pherecydes was an
Athenian, a genealogist ; and the work of the Syrian Phere-
cydes is preserved, and it begins thus : — " Jupiter, and Time,
and Chthon existed externally." And the name of Gthonia
became Tellus, after Jupiter gave it to her as a reward. A
sun-dial is also preserved, in the island of Syra, of his making.
YII. But Duris, in the second book of his Boundaries,
says that this epigram was written upon' him : —
The limit of all wifldom is in me ;
And would be, were it larger. But report
To my Pythagoras that he's the first
Of all the men that tread the Grecian soil ;
I shall not speak a falsehood, saying this.
And Ion, the Chian, says of him :—
Adorned wiih valour while alive, and modesty.
Now that he's dead he still exists in peace ;
For, like the wise Pythagoras, he studied
The manners and the minds of many nations.
And I myself have composed an epigram on him in the Phere-
cratean metre : —
The story is reported,
That noble Pherecydes
Whom Syros calls her own.
Was eaten up by lice ;
And so he bade his friends,
Convey his corpse away
^To the Magnesian land.
That he might victory give
To holy Ephesus.
For well the Qod had said,
{Though he alone did know
Th' oracular prediction).
That this was fate's decree.
So in .that land he lies.
This then is surely true.
That those who're really wise
Are useful while alive.
And e'en when breath has left them.
56 UVES OF EmNENT PHILOSOPHERS.
VIII. And he flourished about the fifitj-ninth Olympiad.
There is a letter of his extaut in the following terms : —
PHEBECTDES TO THALE8.
Maj you die happily when &,te oyertakes you. Disease
has seized upon me at the same time that I received your
letter. I am all over lice, and sufifering likewise under a low
fever. Accordingly, I have charged my servants to convey this
book of mine to you, after they have buried me. And do you,
if you think fit, alter consulting with the other wise men, publish
it ; but if you do not approve of doing so, then keep it impubUshed,
for I am not entirely pleased with it myself. The subject is
not one about which there is any certain knowledge, nor do I
imdertake to say that I have arrived at the truth ; but I have
advanced arguments, from which any one who occupies himself
with speculations on the divine nature, may make a selection ;
and as to other points, he must exercise his intellect, for I
speak obscurely throughout I, myself, as I am afflicted more
severely by this disease every day, no longer admit any phy-
sicians, or any of my friends. But when they stand at the
door, and ask me how I am, I put out my finger to them through
the opening of the door, and show them how I am eaten up with
the evil ; and I desired them to come to-morrow to the funeral
of Pherecydes.
These, then, are they who were called wise men ; to which
list some writers add the name of Pisistratus. But we must
also speak of the philosophers. And we will begin first with
the Ionic philosophy, the founder of which school was Thales,
who was the master of Anaximander.
67
BOOK 11.
LIFE OF ANAXIMANDEK.
I. Anaximandeb, the son of Praxiadas, was a citizen of
Miletas.
II. He used to assert that the principle and primarj element
of all things was the Infinity, giving no exact definition as to
whether he meant air or water, or anything else. And he
said that the parts were susceptible of change, but that the
whole was unchangeable ; and that the earth lay in the middle,
being placed there as a sort of centre, of a spherical shape.
The moon, he said, had a borrowed light, and borrowed it from
the sun ; and the sun he affirmed to be not less than the earth,
and the purest possible fire.
III. He also was the first discoverer of the gnomon; and he
placed some in Lacedsemon on the sun-dials there, as Pharo-
, rinus says in his Universal History, and they showed the solstices
and the equinoxes ; he also made clocks. He was the first
person, too, who drew a map of the earth and sea, and he also
made a globe ; and he published a concise statement of what-
ever opinions he embraced or entertained ; and this treatise
was met with by Apollodorus, the Athenian.
IV. And Apollodorus, in his Chronicles, states, that in the
second year of the fifty-eighth Olympiad, he was sixty-four
years old. And soon after he died, having flourished much
about the same time as Polycrates, the tyrant, of Samos. They
say that when he sang, the children laughed ; and that he,
hearing of this, said, '* We must then sing better for the sake of
the children."
Y. There was also another Anaximander, a historian ; and
he too was a Milesian, and wrote in the Ionic dialect.
LIFE OF ANAXIMENES.
I. Anaximekes, the son of Eurystratus, a Milesian, was a
pupil of Anaximander ; but some say that he was also a pupil
of Parmenides. He said that the principles of everything
5^ LIVES OF EMIKENT PHILOSOPHEBS.
were the air, and the Infinite ; and that the stars moved not
under the earth, but around the earth. He wrote in the pure
unmixed Ionian dialect. And he lived, according to the state-
ments of Apollodorus, in the sixty-third Olympiad, and died
about the time of the taking of Sardis.
II. There were also two other persons of the name of
Anaximenes, both citizens of Lampsacus ; one an orator and
the other a historian, who was the son of the sister of the
orator, and who wrote an account of the exploits of Alexander.
III. And this philosopher wrote the following letters : —
ANAXIMENES TO PTTHAOOBAS.
Thales, the son of Euxamias, has died in his old age, by
an unfortunate accident. In the evening, as he was accus-
tomed to do, he went forth out of the vestibule of his house
with his maid-servant, to observe the stars : and (for he had
forgotten the existence of the place) while he was looking up
towards the skies, he fell down a precipitous place. So now
the astronomer of Miletus has met with thiis end. But we
who were his pupils cherish the recollection of the man, and
so do our children and our own pupils : and we will lecture on
his principles. At all events, tlfe beginning of all wisdom
ought to be attributed to Thales.
IV. And again he writes :^
ANAXIMENES TO PTTHAOOBAS.
You are more prudent than we, in that you have migrated
from Samos to Crotona, and live there in peace. For the
descendants of iEacus commit unheard-of crimes, and tyrants
never cease to oppress the Milesians. The king of the Medes
too is formidable to us : unless, indeed, we choose to become
tributary to him. But the lonians are on the point of
engaging in war with the Medes in the cause of universal
freedom. For if we remain quiet there is no longer any hope
of safety for us. How then can Anaximenes apply his mind
to the contemplation of the skies, while he is in perpetual
fear of death or slavery ? But you are beloved by the people
of Crotona, and by all the rest of the Italians ; and pupils
flock to you, even from Sicily.
ANAXAGORAS. 59
LIFE OF ANAXAGORAS.
I. ANAXAGORAS, the son of Hegesibulus, or Eubulus, was a
citizen of Clazomense. He was a pupil of Anaximenes, .and
was the first philosopher who attributed mind to matter,
beginning his treatise on the subject in the following manner
(and the whole treatise is written in a most beautiful and
magnificent style) : " All things were mixed up together ;
then Mind came and airranged them all in distinct order."
On which account he himself got the same name of Mind.
And Timon speaks thus of him in his Silli : —
They say too that wise Anaxagoras
Deserves immortal fame ; they call him Mmd,
Because, as he doth teach, Mind came iq season,
Arranging all which was oonfus'd before.
II. He was eminent for his noble birth and for his riches,
and still more so for his magnanimity, inasmuch as he gave up
all his patrimony to his relations ; and being blamed by thera
for his neglect of his estate, " Why, then," said he, " do not
you take care of it?*' And at last he abandoned it entirely,
and devoted himself to the contemplation of subjects of natural
philosophy, disregarding politics. So that once when some
said to him, " You have no affection for your country," " Be
silent," said he, " for I have the greatest affection for my
country," pointing up to heaven.
III. It is said, lliat at the time of the passage of the
Hellespont by Xerxes, he was twenty years old, and that he
lived to the age of seventy-two. But Apollodorus, in his
Chronicles says that he flourished in the seventieth Olympiad,
and that he died in the first year of the seventy-eighth. And
he began to study philosophy at Athens, in the archonship of
Gallias, being twenty years of age, as Demetrius Phalerius
teUs us in his Catalogue of the Archons, and they say that he
remained at Athens thirty yeara.
IV. He asserted that the sun was a mass of burning iron,
greater than Peloponnesus ; (that some attribute this doc-
trine to Tantalus), and that the moon contained houses, and
also hills and ravines : and that the primary elements of
everything were similarities of parts ; for as we say that gold
consists of a quantity of grains combined togedier, so too
is the universe formed of a number of small bodies of similar
60 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
parts. He further taught that Mind was the principle of
motion : and that of hodies the heavy ones, such as the earth,
occupied the lower situations ; and the light ones, such as
fire, occupied the higher places, and that the middle spaces
were assigned to water and air. And thus that the sea rested
upon the earth, which was hroad, the moisture heing all
evaporated hj the sun. * And he said that the stars originally
moved ahout in irregular confusion, so that at first the pole
star, which is continuallj visible, always appeared in the
zenith, but that afterwards it acquired a certain declination.
And that the milky way was a reflection of the light of the
sun when the stars did not appear. The comets he considered
to be a concourse of planets emitting rays : and the shooting
stars he thought were sparks as it were leaping from the
firmament. The winds he thought were caused by the rari-
fication of the atmosphere, which was produced by the sun.
Thunder, he said, was produced by the collision of the clouds ;
and lightning by the rubbing together of the clouds. Earth-
quakes, he said, were produced by the return of the air into
the earth. All animals he considered were originally gene-
rated out of moisture, and heat, and earthy particles : and
subsequently from one another. And males he considered
were derived from those on the right hand, and females from
those on the left.
V. They say, also, that he predicted a fall of the stones
which fell near JSgospotami, and which he said would fall
from the sun: on which account Euripides, who was a
disciple of his, said in his Phaethon that the sun was a golden
clod of earth. He went once to Olympia wrapped in a
leathern cloak as if it were going to rain ; and it did rain.
And they say that he once replied to a man who asked him
whether the mountains at Lampsacus would ever become sea,
" Yes, if time lasts long enough.*'
YI. Being once asked for what end he had been bom, he
said« *' For the contemplation of the sun, and moon, and
heaven." A man once said to him, *'You have lost the
Athenians ;" " No," said he, " they have lost me." When he
beheld the tomb of Mausolus, he said, *' A costly tomb is an
image of a petrified estate." And he comforted a man who was
grieving because he was dying in a foreign land, by telling
him, " The descent to hell is the same from every place."
; ANAXA60RAS. 61
VII. He appears to bave been the first person (according
to the account given by Pharorinus in his Universal History),
who said that the Poem of Homer was composed in praise of
virtue and justice : and Metro, of Lampsacus, who was a
friend of his, adopted this opinion, and advocated it ener-
getically, and Meljodorus was the first who seriously studied
the natural philosophy developed in the vnritings of ^e great
poet.
VIII* Anaxagoras was also the first man who ever wrote a
work in prose ; and Silenus, in the first book of his Histories,
says, that in the archonship of Lysanias a large stone fell
from heaven ; and that in reference to this event Anaxagoras
said, that the whole heaven was composed of stones, and that
by its rapid revolutions they were all held together ; and when
those revolutions get slower, they fall down.
IX. Of his trial there are different accoonts given. For
Sotion, in his Succession of the Philosophers, says, that he was
persecuted for impiety by Cleon, because he said that the sun
was a fiery ball of iron. And thougli Pericles, who had been
his pupil, defended him, he was, nevertheless, fined five
talents and banished. But Satyrus, in his Livesr, says that it
was Thucydides by whom he was impeached, as Thucydides
vas of the opposite party to Pericles ; and that he was pro-
secuted not only for impiety, but also for Medison ; and that
he was condemned to death in his absence. And when news
was brought him of two misfortunes — his condemnation, and
the death of his children ; concerning the condemnation he
said, " Nature has long since condemned both them and me."
But about his children, he said, " I knew that I had become
the father of mortals." Some, however, attribute this saying
to Solon, and others to Xenophon. And Demetrius Phale-
reus, in his treatise on Old Age, says that Anaxagoras buried
them with his own hands. But Hermippus, in his Lives, says
that he was thrown into prison for the purpose of being put to
death : but that Pericles came forward and inquired if any one
brought any accusation against him respecting his course of
life. And as no one alleged anything against bun : " I then/'
eaid he, *' am his disciple : do not you then be led away by
calumnies to put this man to death ; but be guided by me, and
release him." And he was released. But, as he was indignant
at the insult which had been offered to him, he left the city.
6*^ LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOBOFHEBS.
But Hieronjmus, in the second book of his Miscellaneous
Commentaries, says that Pericles produced him before the
court, tottering and emaciated bjr disease, so ;that he was
released rather out of pity, than bj any deliberate decision on
the merits of his case. And thus mudi may be said about his
trial. Some people have fancied that he was very hostile to
Demochtus, because he did not succeed in getting admission
to him for the purposes of conversation.
. X. And at last, having gone to Lampsacus, he died in that
city. And it is said, that when the governors of the city asked
him what he would }ike to have done for him, he replied,
" That they would allow the children to play every year during
the month in which he died." And this custom is kept, up
even now. And when he was dead, the citizens of Lampsacus
buried him with great honours, and wrote this epitaph on him : —
Here Anaxagoras lies, who reached of truth
The farthest bounds in heavenly speculations.
We ourselves also have written an epigram on him: —
Wise Anaxagoras did call the sun
A mass of glowing iron ; and Jbr this
Death was to be his fate. But Pericles
Then saved his friend ; but afterwards he died
A victim of a weak philosophy.
XI. There were also three other people of the name of
Anaxagoras ; none of whom combined all kinds of knowledge ;
But one was an orator and a pupil of Isocrates ; another was
a statuary, who is mentioned by Antigonus; another is a
grammarian, a pupil of Zenodotus.
LIFE OF ARCHELAUS.
I. Aechklaus was a citizen of either Athens or Miletus, and
his father's name was Apollodorus ; but, as some say, Mydon.
He was a pupil of Anaxagoras, and the master of Socrates.
II. He was the first person who imported the study of
natural philosophy from Ionia to Athens, and he was called
the Natural Philosopher, because natural philosophy terminated
with him, as Socrates introduced ethical philosophy. And it
seems probable that Archelaus too meddled in some degree
SOCRATES. 63
with moral philosophy ; for in his philosophical speculations he
discussed laws and what was honourable and just. And Socrates
borrowed from him ; and becaused he enlarged his principles,
he was thought to be the inventor of them.
III. He used to say that there were two primary causes of
generation, heat and cold ; and that all animals were generated
out of mud : and that what are accounted just and disgraceful
are not so by nature, but only by law. And his reasoning
proceeds in this way. He says, that water being melted by
heat, when it is submitted to the action of fiire, by which it is
solidified, hecomes earth ; and when it is liquefied, becomes
air. And, therefore, the earth is surrounded by air and influ-
enced by it, and so is the air by the revolutions of fire. And
he says that animals are generated out of hot earth, which
sends up a thick mud something like milk for their food. So
too he says that it produced men.
And he was the first person who said that sound is produced
by the percussion of the air ; and that the sea is filtered in
the hollows of the earth in its passage, and so is condensed ;
and that the sun is the greatest of the stars, and that the
universe is boundless.
IV. But there were three other people of the name of
Archelaus : one, a geographer, who described the countries
traversed by Alexander ; the second, a man who wrote a poem
on objects which have two natures ; and the third, an orator,
who wrote a book containing the precepts of his art.
LIFE OF SOCRATES.
I. Socrates was the son of Sophroniscus, a statuary, and of
Phaenarete, a midwife ; as Plato records in his Miasbetus ; he
was a citizen of Athens, of the borough of Alopece.
II. Some people believed that he assisted Euripides in his
poems ; in reference to which idea, Moresimachus speaks as
follows : —
The Phrygians are a new play of Euripides,
But Socrates has laid the mala foundation.*
* <Ppvyava, sticks or faggots.
64 LIVES OF EMINENT FHIL0S0PHEB8.
And again he says : —
Euripides: pccched up by Socrates.
And Callias, in his Captives, says : —
A. Are you so proud, giving yourself such airs f
JB, And well I may, for Socrates is the cause.
And Aristophanes says, in his Clouds : —
This is Euripides, who doth compose
Those argumentative wise tragedies.
III. But, having been a pupil of Anaxagoras, as some
people say, but of Damon as the other stoiy goes, related
by Alexander in his Successions, after the condemnation of
Anaxagoras, he became a disciple of Archelaus, the natural
philosopher. And, indeed, Aristoxenus says that he was veiy
intimate with him.
lY. But Duris says that he was a slave, and employed in
carving stones. And some say that the Graces in the Acropolis
are his work ; and they are clothed figures. And that it is in
reference to this that Timon says, in his Silli : —
From them proceeded the stone polisher.
The reasoning legislator, the enchanter
Of all the Qreeks, making them subtle aiguerB^
A cunning pedant^ a shrewd Attic quibbler.
y. For he was very clever in all rhetorical exercises, as
Idomeneus also assures us. But the thirty tyrants forbade
him to give lessons in the art of speaking and arguing, as
Xenophon tells us. And Aristophanes turns him into ridicule
in his Comedies, as making the worse appear the better reason.
For he was the first man, as Pharorinus says in his Universal
History, who, in conjunction with his disciple ^schines,
taught men how to become orators. And Idomeneus makes
the same assertion in his essay on the Socratic School. He»
likewise, was the first person who conversed about human
life ; and was also the fOrst philosopher who was condemned
to death and executed. And Aristoxenus, the son of Spin-
tharas, says that he lent money in usury; and that he
collected llie interest and principal together, and then, when
he had got the interest, he lent it out again. And Demetrius,
of Byzantium, says that it was Criton who made him leave
SOCRATEa 65
, his workshop and instruct men, out of tlie admiration which
he conceived for his abilities.
VI. He then, perceiving that natural philosophy had no
immediate bearing on our interests, began to enter upon
moral speculations, both in his workshop and in the market-
place. And he said that the objects of his search were —
Whatever good or harm can man hefall
In his own house.
And very often, while arguing and discussing points that arose,
he was treated with great violence and beaten, and pulled
about, and laughed at and ridiculed by the multitude. But
he bore all this with great equanimity. So that once, when
he had been kicked and buffeted about, and had borne it all
patiently, and some one expressed his surprise, he said,
" Suppose an ass had kicked me, would you have had me
bring an action against him T And this is the account of
Demetrius.
VII. But he had no need of travelling (though most
philosophers did travel), except when he was bound to serve in
the army. But all the rest of his life he remained in the
same place, and in an argumentative spirit he used to dispute
with all who would converse vnth him, not with the purpose
of taking away their opinions from them, so much as of learn-
ing the truth, as far as he could do so, himself. And they
say that Euripides gave him a small work of Heraclitus to
read, and asked him afterwards what he thought of it, and he
replied, " What I have understood is good ; and so, I think,
what I have not understood is; only the book requires a
Belian diver to get at the meaning of it." He paid great
attention also to the training of the body, and was always in
excellent condition himself. Accordingly, he joined in the
expedition to Amphipolis, and he it was who took up and
saved Xenophon in the battle of Delian, when he had fallen
from his horse ; for when all the Athenians had fled, he
retreated quietly, turning round slowly, and watching to repel
a-ny one who attacked him. He also joined in the expedition
to PotidaBa, which was undertaken by sea ; for it was impossible
to get there by land, as the war impeded the communication.
And they say that on this occasion he remained the whole
flight in one place ; and that though he had deserved the prize
F
66 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHEB&
f
of pre-eminent valour, he yielded it to Alcibiades, to whom
Aristippus, in the fourth book of his treatise on the Luxury
of the Ancients, says that he was greatly attached. But Ion,
of Chios, says, that while he was a very young man he left
Athens, and went to Samos with Archelaus. And Aristotle
says, that he went to Delphi ; and Pharorinus also, in the
first book of his Commentaries, says that he went to the
Isthmus.
VIII. He was a man of great firmness of mind, and very
much attached to the democracy, as was plain from his not
submitting to Critias, when he ordered him to bring Leon
of Salamis, a very rich man, before the thirty, for the purpose
of being murdered. And he alone voted for the acquittal of
the ten generals ;• and when it was in his power to escape out
of prison he would not do it ; and he reproved those who
bewailed his fate, and even while in prison, he delivered those
beautiful discourses which we still possess.
IX. He was a contented and venerable man. And once,
as Pamphila says, in the seventh book of her Commen-
taries, when Alcibiades offered him a large piece of ground to
build a house upon, he said, " But if I wanted shoes, and you
had given me a piece of leather to make myself shoes, I should
be laughed at if I took it." And often, when he beheld the
multitude of things which were being sold, he would say to
himself, " How many things are there which I do not want."
And he was continually repeating these iambics :—
For silver plate and purple useful are
"^ For actors on the sti^, but not for men.
And he showed his scorn of Archelaus the Macedonian, and
Scopas the Crononian, and Euiylochus of Larissa, when he
refused to accept their money, and to go and visit them. And
he was so regular in his way of living, that it happened more
than once when there was a plague at Athens, that he was the
only person who did not catch it.
X. Aristotle says, that he had two wives. The first was
Xanthippe, by whom he had a son named Lamprocles ; the
second was Myrto, the daughter of Aristides the Just ; and he
took her without any dowry, and by her he had two sons,
Sophroniscus and Menexenus. But some say that Myrto was
* After the battle of Arginusn.
SOCRATES. 67
his first wife. And some, among whom are Satyrus, and
Hieronymus, of Ehodes, say that he had them both at the
same time. For they say that the Athenians, on account of
the scarcity of men, passed a YOte, with the view of increasing
the population, that a man might marry one citizen, and
might also have children by another who should be legitimate ;
on which account Socrates did so.
XI. And he was a man able to look down upon any who
mocked him. And he prided himself upon the simplicity of
his way of life ; and never exacted any pay from his pupils.
And he used to say, that the man who ate with the greatest
appetite, had the least need of delicacies ; and that he who
drank with the greatest appetite, was the least inclined to look
for a draught which is not at hand ; and that those who want
fewest thmgs are nearest to the Gods. And thus much,
indeed, one may learn from the comic poets ; who, without
perceiving it, praise him in the very matters for which they
ridicule him. Aristophanes speaks thus : —
Prudent man, who thus with justice long for mighty wisdom,
Happiness will be your lot in Athens, and all Greece too ;
For youVe a noble memory, and plenty of invention.
And patience dwells within your mind, and you are never tired.
Whether you're standing still or walking ; and you care not for cold.
Nor do you long for breakfast time, nor e'er give in to hunger ;
But wine and gluttony you shun, and and all such kind of follies.
And Ameipsias introduces liim on the stage in a cloak, and
speaks thus of him : —
0 Socrates, among few men the best,
And among many vainest ; here at last
You come to us courageously — ^but where.
Where did you get that clos^ ? so strange a garment^
Some leather cutter must have given you
By way of joke : and yet this worthy man,
Though ne'er so hungry, never flatters any one.
Aristophanes too, exposes his contemptuous and arrogant
Bposition, speaking thus : —
Ton strut along the streets, and look around yon proudly,
And barefoot many ills endure, and hold your head above us.
And yet, sometimes he adapted himself to the occasion and
dressed handsomely. As, for instance, in the banquet ofs
Plato, where he is represented as going to find Agathon.
F 2
68 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
XII. He was a man of great ability, both in exhorting men
to, and dissuading them from, any course ; as, for instance,
having discoursed with Thesetetus on the subject of knowledge,
he sent him away almost inspired, as Plato says. And when
Euthyphron had commenced a prosecution against his father
for having killed a foreigner, he conversed with him on the
subject of piety, and turned him from his purpose : and by his
exhortations he made Lysis a most moral man. For he was
very ingenious at deriving arguments from existing circum-
stances. And so he mollified his son Lamprocles when he
was very angry with his mother, as Xenophon mentions some-
where in his works; and he wrought upon Glauson, the
brother of Plato, who was desirous to meddle with affairs of
state, and induced him to abandon his purpose, because of his
want of experience in such matters, as Xenophon relates.
And, on the contrary, he persuaded Charmidas to devote him-
self to politics, because he was a man very well calculated for
such business. He also inspired Iphicrates, the general, with
courage, by showing him the gamecocks of Midias the barber,
pluming themselves against those of Callias ; and Glauemides
said, that the state ought to keep him carefully, as if he were
a pheasant or a peacock. He used also to say, that it was a
strange thing that every one could easily tell what property
he had, but was not able to name all his friends, or even to
tell their number ; so careless were men on that subject.
Once when he saw Euclid exceedingly anxious about some
dialectic arguments, he said to him, " O Euclid, you will
acquire a power of mauagiug sophists, but not of governing
men." For he thought that subtle hair-splitting on those
subjects was quite useless ; as Plato also records in the Eu-
thydemus.
XIII. And wlien Charmidas offered him some slaves, with
the view to his making a profit of them, he would not have
them ; and, as some people say, he paid no regard to the
beauty of Alcibiades.
XIV. He used to praise leisure as the most valuable of pos-
sessions, as Xenophon tells us in his Banquet. And it was a
saying of his that there was one only good, namely, knowledge ;
and one only evil, namely ignorance ; that riches and high
birth had nothing estimable in them, but that, on the contrary,
they were wholly evil. Accordingly, when some one told him
SOCBATES. 69
that the mother of Antisthenes was a Thracian woman, ** Did
jou suppose," said be, '' that so noble a man must be bom of
two Adienians ?" And when Fhaedo was reduced to a state
of slavery, he ordered Crito to ransom him, and taught him,
and made him a philosopher.
XV. And, moreover, he used to learn to play on the lyre
when he had time, saying, that it it was not absurd to learn
anything that one did not know ; and further, he used fre-
quently to dance, thinking such an exercise good for the
health of the body, as Xenophon relates in his Banquet
XVI. He used also to say that the daemon foretold
the future to him ; * and that to begin well was not
a trifling thing, but yet not far from a trifling thing ; and
that he knew nothing, except the fact of his ignorance.
Another saying of his was, that those who bought things out of
season, at an extravagant price, expected never to hve till the.
proper season for them. Once, when he was asked what was
the virtue of a young man, he said, '* To avoid excess in every-
thing." And he used tx) say, that it was necessary to learn
geometry only so fai^as might enable a man to measure land
for the purposes of buying and selling. And when Euripides,
in his Augur, had spoken thus of virtue : —
'Tis best to leave these subjects undisturbed ;
he rose up and left the theatre, saying that it was an absurdity
to think it right to seek for a slave if one could not And him,
but to let virtue be altogether disregarded. The question was
once put to him by a man whether he would advise him to.
many or not ? And he replied, ** Whichever you do,
you will repent it." He often said, that he wondered
at those who made stone statues, when he saw how careful
they were that the stone should be like the man it was
intended to represent, but how careless they were of them-
selves, as to guarding against being like the stone. He
used also to recommend young men to be constantly looking
in the glass, in order that, if they were handsome, they
might be worthy of their beauty ; and if they were ugly, they
* '^This is not quite correct Socrates believed that the daemon
which attended him, limited his warnings to his own conduct ; pre-
venting him from doing what was wrong, but not prompting him to
do right'' — See Grot^t admwatlU chapter on Socrates, Mitt of Gfreece,
voLv.
70 LIVES OP EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
might conceal their unsightly appearance by their accomplish-
ments. He once invited some rich men to dinner, and when
Xanthippe wa« ashamed of their insufficient appointments, he
said, "Be of good cheer ; for if our guests are sensible men,
they will bear with us ; and if they are not, we need not care
about them." He used to say, " That other men lived to eat,
but that he ate to live.** Another saying of his was, " That to
have a regard for the worthless multitude, was like the case of a
man who refused to take one piece of money of four drachmas
as if it were bad, and then took a heap of such coins and ad-
mitted them to be good." When ^schines said, "I am a poor
man, and have nothing else, but I give you myself;" " Do you
not," he replied, ** perceive that you are giving me what is of
the greatest value ?" He said to some one, who was expressing
indignation at being overlooked when the thirty had seized
on the supreme power, ** Do you, then, repent of not being a
tyrant too ?'* A man said to him, " The Athenians have con-
demned you to death.'* "And nature,'* he replied, "has con-
demned them.*' But some attribute this answer to Anaxagoras.
When his wife said to him, " You die unde§ervedly." " Would
you, then,*' he rejoined, " have had me deserve death ?** He
thought once that some one appeared to him in a dream, and
said : —
On the third day you*ll come to lovely Phthia.
And so he said to ^Eschines, " In three days I shall die." And
when he was about to drink the hemlock, ApoUodorus
presented him with a handsome robe, that he might expire in
it ; and he said, " Why was my own dress good enough to
live in, and not good enough to die in ?** When a person said
to him, ** Such an one speaks ill of you ;'* " To be sure,**
said he, " for he has never learnt to speak well.** When An-
tisthenes turned the ragged side of his cloak to the light, he
said, " I see your silly vanity through the holes in your cloak.**
When some one said to him, " Does not that man abuse you ?"
'•* No,** said he, " for that does not apply to me.* It was a
saying of his, too, " That it is a good thing for a man to offer
himself cheerfully to the attacks of the comic writers ; for
then, if they say anything worth hearing, one will be able to
mend ; and if they do not, then all they say is unimportant.**
XYII. He said once to Xanthippe, who first abused him.
SOCRATES. 71
and tben threw water at him, " Did I not say tliat Xanthippe
was thundering now, and would soon rain ?" When Alcibiades
said to him, " The abusive temper of Xanthippe is intolerable ;"
" But I," he rejoined, " am used to it, just as I should be if I
were always hearing the noise of a pulley ; and you yourself
endure to hear geese cackling." To which Alcibiades answered,
" Yes, but they bring me eggs and goslings." " Well," rejoined
Socrates, " and Xanthippe brings me children." Once, she
attacked him in the market-place, and tore his cloak off ; his
friends advised him to keep her off with his hands ; ** Yes,
by Jove,'* said he, " that while we are boxing you may all cry
out, * Well done, Socrates, well done, Xanthippe.'** And he used
to say, that one ought to live with a restive woman, just as
horsemen manage violent-tempered horses ; " and as they,'*
said he, " when they have once mastered them, are easily able
to manage all others ; so I, after managing Xanthippe, can
easily live with any one else whatever."
XVIII. And it was in consequence of such sayings and
actions as these, that the priestess at Delphi was witness in
his fav^r, when she gave Chserephon this answer, which is so
universally known : —
Socrates of all mortals is the wisest.
In consequence of which answer, he incurred great envy ; and
he brought envy also on himself, by convicting men who gave
themselves airs of foUy and ignorance, as undoubtedly he did
to Anytus ; and as is shown in Plato's Meno. For he, not
being able to bear Socrates' jesting, first of all set Aristophanes
to attack him, and then persuaded Melitus to institute a pro-
secution against him, on the ground of impiety and of corrupt-
ing the youth of the city. Accordingly Melitus did institute
the prosecution ; and Polyeuctus pronounced the sentence, as
Pharorinus records in his Universal History. And Polycrates,
the sophist, wrote the speech which was delivered, as Her-
mippus says, not Anytus, as others say. And Lycon, the
demagogue, prepared everything necessary to support the irn-
peachment ; but Antisthenes in his Successions of the Phi-
losophers, and Plato in his Apology, say that these men
brought the accusation : — ^Anytus, and Lycon, and Melitus ;
Anytus, acting against him on behalf of the magistrates, and
72 UYES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHEBS.
because of his political principles ; Lycon, on behalf of the
orators; and Melitus on behalf of the poets, all of whom
Socrates used to pull to pieces. But Pharorinus, in the first
book of his Commentaries, says, that the speech of Poljcrates
against Socrates is not the genuine one ; for in it there is
mention made of the walls having been restored by Conon,
which took place six years after the death of Socrates ; and
certainly this is true.
XIX. But the sworn informations, on which the trial pro-
ceeded, were drawn up in this fashion ; for they are preserved
to this day, says Pharorinus, in the temple of Cybele: — " Me-
litus, the son of Melitus, of Pittea, impeaches Socrates, the son
of Sophroniscus, of Alopece : Socrates is guilty, inasmuch as he
does not believe in the Gods whom the city worslups, but in-
troduces other strange deities ; he is also guilty, inasmuch as he
corrupts the young men, and the punishment he has incurred
is death."
XX. But the philosopher, after Lysias had prepared a de-
fence for him, read it through, and said — " It is a very fine
speech, Lysias, but is not suitable for me ; for it was manifestly
the speech of a lawyer, rather than of a philosopher." And
when Lysias replied, '' How is it possible, that if it is a good
speech, it should not be suitable to you ?'' he said, " Just as
fine clothes and handsome shoes would not be suitable to me."
And when the trial was proceeding, Justus, of Tiberias, in his
Garland, says that Plato ascended the tribune and said, " I,
men of Athens, being the youngest of all those who have mounted
the tribune . . . and that he was interrupted by the judges,
who cried out xara^dvruv, that is to say, * Come down.'
XXI. So when he had been condemned by two hundred and
eighty-one votes, being six more than were given in his favour,
and when the judges Vere making an estimate of what punish-
ment or fine should be inflicted on him, he said that he ought
to be fined five and twenty drachmas ; but Eubulides says that
he admitted that he deserved a fine of one hundred. And
when the judges raised an outcry at this proposition, he said,
" My real opinion is, that as a return for what has been done
by me, I deserve a maintenance in the Prytaneum for the rest
of my life." So they condemned him to death, by eighty votes
more than they had originally found him guilty. And he was
put into prison, and a few days afterwards he drank the hem-
SOCRATES. 73
«
lock, having held many adnurable conversations in the mean-
time, which Plato has recorded in the Phsedo.
XXII. He also, according to some accounts, composed a
psBan, which begins —
V Hail Apollo, King of Delos,
'v ^ Hail Diana^ Leto's child.
Bat Dionysidorus says that this psBan is not his. He also com-
posed a fable, in the style of -^sop, not very artistically, and
it begins —
^8op one day did this sage counsel give
To the Corinthian magistrates : not to trust
^ The cause of virtue to the people's judgment.
XXIII. So he died ; but the Athenians immediately
repented* of their iustiou, so that they closed all the palsBStr®
and gymnasia ; and they banished his accusers, and condemned
Melitus to death ; but they honoured Socrates with a brazen
statue, whioh they erected in the place where the sacred vessels
are kept ; and it was the work of Lysippus. But Anytus had
already left Athens ; and the people of Heraclea banished him
from that city the day of his arrival. Hut Socrates was not
the only person who met with this treatment at the hands of
the Athenians, but many other men received the same : for,
as Heraclides says, they fined Homer fifty drachmas as a mad-
man, and they said that lystSBus was out of his wits. But they
honoured Astydamas, beforS ^schylus, with a brazen statue.
And Euripides reproaches them for their conduct in his Pala-
inedes, saying —
Ye have slain, ye have slain,
O Greeks, the all-wise nightingale.
The favourite of the Muses, guHtleBS alL
And enough has been said on this head.
But Philochorus says that Euripides died before Socrates ;
and he was bom, as Apollodorus in his Chronicles asserts, in
the archonship of Apsephion, in the fourth year of the seventy-
seventh Olympiad, on the sixth day of the month Thargelion,
when the Athenians purify their city, and when the citizens
of Delos say that Diana was bom. And he died in the first
* Qrote gives good 'reasons for disbelieving this.
74 LIVES OF EMINENT PHIL080PHEBS.
year of the ninety-fifth Olympiad, being seventy years of age.
And this is the calculation of Demetrius Phalereus, for some
say that he was but sixty years old when he died.
XXIV. Both he and Euripides were pupils of Anaxagoras ;
and Euripides was bom in the first year of the seventy-fifth
Olympiad, in the archonship of Galliades. But Socrates
appears to me to have also discussed occasionally subjects of
natural philosophy, since he very often disputes about prudence
and foresight, as Xenophon tells us ; although he at the same
time asserts that all his conversations were about moral phi-
losophy. And Plato, in his Apology, mentions the principles
of Anaxagoras and other natural philosophers, which Socrates
denies ; and he is in reality expressing his own sentiments
about them, though he attributes them all to Socrates. And
Aristotle tells us that a certain one of the Magi came from
Syria to Athens, and blamed Socrates for many parts of his
conduct, and also foretold that he would come to a violent
death. And we ourselves have written this epigram on him —
Drink now, 0 Socrates, in the realms of Jove,
For truly did the Cbd pronounce you wise,
And he who said so is himself all wisdom :
You drank the poison which your country gave,
But they drank wisdom from your godlike voice.
XXV. He had, as Aristotle tells us in the third book of his
Poetics, a contest with a man of^the name of Antiolochus of
Lemnos, and with Antipho, an inteipreter of prodigies, as
Pythagoras had with Cylon of Orotona ; and Homer while
alive with Sagaris, and after his death with Xenophanes the
Colophonian ; and Hesiod, too, in his lifetime with Dereops,
and after his death with the same Xenophanes ; and Pindar
with Aphimenes of Cos ; and Thales with Pherecydes ; and
Bias with Salamis of Priene ; and Pittacus with Antimenides ;
and Cellseus and Anaxagoras with Sosibrius ; and Simonides
with Timocrea.
XXVI. Of those who succeeded him, and who are called the
Socratic school, the chiefs were Plato, Xenophon, and Antis-
thenes : and of the ten, as they are often called, the four most
eminent were ^schines, Phsedo, Euclides, and Ari'stippus.
But we miust first speak of Xenophon, and after him of An-
tisthenes among the Cynics. Then of the Socratic school, and
XBNOPHON. 75
SO about Plato, since he is the chief of the ten sects, and the
founder of the first Academy. And the regular series of them
shall proceed in this manner.
XXVII. There was also another Socrates, a historian, who
wrote a description of Argos ; and another, a peripatetic philo-
sopher, a native of Bithynia; and another a writer of epi-
grams ; and another a native of Cos, who wrote invocations to
the Gods.
LIFE OF XENOPHON.
I. Xenophon, the son of Gryllus, a citizen of Athens, was of
the borough of Erchia ; and he was a man of great modesty,
and as handsome as can be imagined.
II. They say that Socrates met him in a nanx)w lane, and
put his stick across it, and prevented him from passing by,
asking him 'where all kinds of necessary things were sold. And
when he had answered him, he asked him again where men
where made good and virtuous. And as he did dot know, he
said, " Follow me, then, and learn." And from this time
forth, Xenophon became a follower of Socrates.
III. And he was the first person who took down conversa-
tions as they occurred, and published them among men,
calling them memorabilia. He was also the first man who
wrote a history of philosophers.
IV. And Aristippus, in the fourth book of his treatise on
Ancient Liuxury, says that he loved Clinias ; and that he said to
him, " Now I look upon Clinias with more pleasure than upon all
the other beautiful things which are to be seen among men ; and
I would rather be blind as to all the rest of the world, than as
to Clinias. And I am annoyed even with night and with sleep,
because then I do not see him ; but I am veiy grateful to the
sun and to daylight, because they show Clinas to me."
v. He became a friend of Cyrus in this manner He
had an acquaintance, by name Proxenus, a Boeotian by birth,
a pupil of Gorgias of Leontini, and a friend of Cyrus. He being
in Sardis, staying at the court of Cyrus, wrote a letter to Athens
76 LIVES OF EMINJENT PHILOSOPHERS.
I
to Xenopbon, inviting him to come and be afriend of Cyrus. And
Xenopbon sbowed tbe letter to Socrates, and asked bis advice.
And Socrates bade bim go to Delpbi, and ask counsel of tbe
God. And Xenopbon did so, and went to tbe God ; but the
question be put was, not whether it was good for bim to go to
Cyrus or not, but bow he should go ; for which Socrates
blamed him, but still advised him to go. Accordingly he went
to Cyrus, and became no less dear to him than Proxenus.
And all the circumstances of the expedition and the retreat, he
himself has sufficiently related to us.
VI. But he was at enmity with Menon the Pbarsalian, who
was the commander of the foreign troops at tbe time of the
expedition ; and amongst other reproaches, he says that he
was much addicted to tbe worst kind of debauchery. And he
reproaches a man of the name of Apollonides with having his
ears bored.
VII. But after tbe expedition, and tbe disasters which took
place in Pontus, and tbe violations of tbe truce by Seuthes,
the king of the OdiyssB, be came into Asia to Agesilaus, the
king of Lacedaemon, bringing with him tbe soldiers of Cyrus,
to serve for pay ; and he became a very great friend of
Agesilaus. And about tbe same time he was condemned to
banishment by the Athenians, on the charge of being a far
vourer of the Lacedsemonians. And being in Ephesus, and
having a sum of money in gold, be gave half of it to Mega-
byzus, the priest of Diana, to keep for him till bis return ; and
if he never returned, then be was to expend it upon a statue,
and dedicate that to the Goddess ; and with tbe other half he
sent offerings to Delphi. From thence be went with Agesilaus
into Greece, as Agesilaus was summoned to take part in the
war against tbe Thebans. And the Lacedemonians made him
a friend of their city.
VIII. After this he left Agesilaus and went to Scillus, which
is a strong place in tbe district of Elis, at no great distance
from the city. And a woman followed him, whose name was
Philesia, as Demetrius the Magnesian relates ; and his sons,
Gryllus and Diodorus, as Dinarchus states in the action against
Xenopbon ;♦ and they were also called Dioscuri. And when
* The Greek is, Iv rtf irpbg Stvo^uvra inroaTaaiov — " airovTaaiov
^iKrj, an action against a freedman for having forsaken or slighted his
frpocTaTtis" — L. <fc 8,
XBNOPHON. 77
Megabyzus came into the country, on the occasion of some
public assembly, he took back the money and bought a piece of
ground, and consecrated it to the Goddess ; and a river named
Selmus, which is the same name as that of the river at Ephe-
SOS, flows through the land. And there he continued hunting,
and entertaining his friends, and writing histories. But Di-
narchus says that the Lacedaemonians gave him a house and
land. They say also that Philopides,the Spartan, sent him there,
as a present, some slaves, who had been taken prisoners of war,
natives of Dardanus, and that he located them as he pleased.
And that the Eleans, having made an expedition against
Scillus, took the place, as the Lacedaemonians dawdled in
coming to its assistance.
IX. But then his sons escaped privily to Lepreum, with a
few servants ; and Xenophon himself fled to Elis before the
place fell ; and from thence he went to Lepreum to his chil-
dren, and from thence he escaped in safety to Corinth, and
settled in that city.
X. In the meantime, as the Athenians had passed a vote
to go to the assistance of the Lacedaemonians, he sent his sons
to Athens, to join in the expedition in aid of the Lacedae-
monians ; for they had been educated in Sparta, as Diodes
relates in his Lives of the Philosophers. Diodorus returned
safe back again, without having at all distinguished himself in
the battle. And he had a son who bore the same name as his
brother Gryllus. But Gryllus, serving in the cavalry, (and
the battle took place at Mantinea,) fought very gallantly, and
was slain, as Ephorus tells us, in his twenty-fifth book ;
Cephisodorus being the Captain of the cavalry, and Hegesides
the commander-in-chief. Epaminondas also fell in this
battle. And after the battle, they say that Xenophon offered
sacrifice, wearing a crown on his head ; but when the news
of the death of his son arrived, he took off the crown;
hut after that, hearing that he had fallen gloriously, he put
the crown on again. And some say that he did not even shed
a tear, but said, ** I knew that I was the father of a mortal
man." And Aristotle says, that innumerable writers wrote
panegyrics and epitaphs upon Gryllus, partly out of a wish to
gratify his father. And Hermippus, in his Treatise on Theo-
phrastus, says that Isocrates also composed a panegyric on
Gryllus. But Timon ridicules him in these words : —
78 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHEBS.
A silly couplet^ or e'en triplet of speeches^
Or longer series still, just such as Xenophon
Might write, or Meagre^^schines.
Such, then, iras the life of Xenophon.
' XI. And he flourished about the fourth year of the ninety-
fourth Olympiad ; and he took part in the expedition of Cyrus,
in the archonship of Xensenetus, the year before the deadi of
Socrates. And he died, as Stesiclides the Athenian states in
his List of Archons and Conquerors at Olympia, in the first
year of the hundred and fifth Olymiad, in the archonship of
Callidemides ; in which year, Philip the son of Amyntas began
to reign over the Macedonians. And he died at Corinth, as
Demetrius the Magnesian says, being of a veiy advanced age.
XII. And he was a man of great distinction in all points, and
very fond 'of horses and of dogs, and a great tactician, as is
manifest from his writings. And he was a pious man, fond of
sacrificing to the Gods, and a great authority as to what was
due to tiiem, and a very ardent admirer and imitator of
Socrates.
XIII. He also wrote near forty books ; though different
critics divide them differently. He wrote an account of tlie
expedition of Cyrus, to each book of which work he prefixed a
summary, though he gave none of the whole history. He also
wTote the Cyropaedia, and a history of Greece, and Memorabilia
of Socrates, and a treatise called the Banquet, and an essay on
CSconomy, and one on Horsemanship, and one on Breaking
Dogs, and one on Managing Horses, and a Defence of "Socrates,
and a Treatise on Eevenues, and one called Hiero, or the
Tyrant, and one called Agesilaus ; one on the Constitution of
the Athenians and Lacedaemonians, which, however, Demetrius
the Magnesian says is not the work of Xenophon. It is said,
also, that he secretly got possession of the books of Thucydides,
which were previously unknown, and himself pubhshed them.
XIV. He was also called the Attic Muse, because of the
sweetness of his diction, in respect of which he and Plato felt a
spirit of rivalry towards one another, as we shall relate further
in our life of Plato. And we ourselves have composed an
epigram on him, which runs thus ;—
Not only up to Babylon for Cyrus
Did Xenophon go, but now he's mounted up
^SCHINES. 79
*
The path which leads to Jove's eternal realms —
For he, recountiiig the great deeds of Greece,
Displays his noble genius, and he shows
The depth of wisdom of his master Socrates.
And another which ends thus :— *
O Xenophon, if th' ungrateful countrymen
Of Czanon and Cecrops, banished you,
Jealous of Cyrus' favour which he show'd you,.
Still hospitable Corinth, with glad hearty
Beceived you, and you lived there happily,
And BO resolved to stay in that fair dty.
XY. But I have found it stated in some places that he
flourished about the eighty-ninth Olympiad, at the same time
as the rest of the disciples of Socrates. And Ister says, that
he was banished by a decree of Eubulus, and that he was
recalled by another decree proposed by the same person.
XVI. But there were seven people of the name of Xenophon.
First of all, this philosopher of ours ; secondly, an Athenian,
a brother of Pythostratus, who wrote the poem called the
Theseid, and who wrote other works too, especially the lives
of Epaminondas and Pelopidas ; the third was a physician of
Cos ; the fourth, a man who wrote a history of Alcibiades ;
the fifth, was a writer who composed a book full of fabulous
prodigies ; the sixth, a citizen of Paros, a sculptor ; the
seventh, a poet of the Old Comedy.
LIFE OF ^SCHINES.
I. iElscHiNES was the son of Charinus, the sausage-maker,
but, as some writers say, of Lysanias ; he was a citizen of
Athens, of an industrious disposition from his boyhood upwards,
on which account he never quitted Socrates.
II. And this induced Socrates to say, the only one who
knows how to pay us proper respect is the son of the ^usage-
seller. Idomeneus asserts, that it was he who, in the prison,
tried to persuade Socrates to make his escape, and not Crito.
But that Plato, as he was rather inclined to favour Anstippus,
attributed his advice to Crito.
III. And ^schines was calumniated on more than one occa-
80 LIVES OP EMIWBNT PHILOSOPHERS.
sion ; and especially by Menedemus of Eretria, who states that
he appropriated many dialogues of Socrates as his own, having
procured them from Xanthippe. And those of them which are
called " headless," are exceedingly slovenly performances,
showing nothing of the energy of Socrates. And Pisistratus,
of Ephesus, used to say, that they were not the work of
^schines. There are seven of them, and most of them are
stated by Persaeus to be the work of Pasiphon, of Eretria, and
to have been inserted by him among the works of ^schines.
And he plagiarised from the Little Cyrus, and the Lesser
Hercules, of Antisthenes, and from the Alcibiades, and from
the Dialogues of the other philosophers. The Dialogues then
of ^schines, which profess to give an idea of the system of
Socrates are, as I have said, seven in number. First of all,
the Miltiades, which is rather weak; the Callias, the Axio-
chus, the Aspasia, the Alcibiades, the Jelanges, and the Rhino.
And they say that he, being in want, went to Sicily, to Diony-
sius, and was looked down upon by Plato, but supported by
Aristippus, and that he gave Dionysius some of his dialogues,
and received presents for them.
IV. After that he came to Athens, and there he did not
venture to practise the trade of a sophist, as Plato and Ari-
stippus were in high reputation there. But he gave lectures
for money, and wrote speeches to be delivered in the courts of
law for persons under prosecution. On which account, Timon
said of him, " The speeches of ^schines which do not convince
any one." And they say that when he was in great straights
through poverty, Socrates advised him to borrow of himself,
by deducting some part of his expenditure in his food.
V. And even Aristippus suspected the genuineness of some
of his Dialogues ; accordingly, they say that when he was
reciting some of them at Megara, he ridiculed him, and said
to him, " Oh ! you thief ; where did you get that ?"
VL And Polycritus, of Menda, in the first book of his
History of Dionysius, says that he lived with the tyrant till
he was deposed, and till the return of Dion to Syracuse ; and
he says that Caramis, the tragedian, was also with him. And
there is extant a letter of JEschines addressed to Dionysius.
VII. But he was a man well versed in rhetorical art, as is
plain, from the defence of his father Phoeax, the general ; and
from the works which he wrote in especial imitation of Gorgias,
L
ARisnppus. 81
of Leontini. And Lysias wrote an oration against bim ;
entitling it. On Sycophancy ; from all which circumstances it
is plain that he was a skilful orator. And one man is spoken
of as his especial Mend, Aristotle, who was sumamed The
Table.
VIII. Now Panaetius thinks that the Dialogues of the
following disciples of the Socratic school are all genuine, —
Plato, Xenophon, Antisthenes, and iEschines ; but he doubts
about those which go under the names of Phsedon, and
Euclides ; and he utterly repudiates all the others.
IX. And there were eight men of the name of ^schines.
The first, this philosopher of ours ; the second was a man who
wrote a treatise on Oratorical Art ; the third was the orator
who spoke against Demosthenes ; the fourth was an Arcadian,
a disciple of Isocrates ; the fifth was a citizen of Mitylene,
whom they used to call the Scourge of the Orators ; the sixth
was a Neapolitan, a philosopher of the Academy, a disciple
and favourite of Melanthius, of Ehode ; the seventh was a
Milesian, a political writer ; the eighth was a statuary.
LIFE OF ARISTIPPUS.
I. Aribtipptjs was by birth a Cyrenean, but he came to
-Athens, as ^schines says, having been attracted thither by
the fame of Socrates.
II. He, having professed himself a Sophist, as Phanias, of
Eresus, the Peripatetic, informs us, was the first of the pupils
of Socrates who exacted money from his pupils, and who sent
money to his master. And once he sent him twenty drach-
mas, but had them sent back again, as Socrates said that his
daemon would not allow him to accept them ; for, in fact, he
was indignant at having them offered to him. And Xenophon
used to hate him ; on which account he wrote his book against
pleasure as an attack uplon Aristippus, and assigned the main
argument to Socrates. Theodorus also, in his Treatise on
Sects, has attacked him severely, and so has Plato in his
book on the Soul, as we have mentioned in another place.
III. But he was a man very quick at adapting himself to
a
8*2 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHEBa
eveiy kind of place, and time, and person,* and he eBsSLy
supported every change of fortune. For which reason he was
in greater favour with Dionysius than any of the others, as he
always made the hest of existing circumstances. For he
enjoyed what was hefore him pleasantly, and he did not toil
to procure himself the enjoyment of what was not present.
On which account Diogenes used to call him the king's dog»
And Timon used to snarl at him as too luxurious, speaking
somewhat in this fashion : —
Like the effeminate mind of Aristippna,
Who, aa he said, by tonch could judge of falsehood.
They say that he once ordered a partridge to be bought for
him at the price of fifty drachmas ; and when some one blamed
him, " And would not you," said he, " have bought it if it had
cost an obol ?" And when he said he would, " Well," replied
Aristippus, '' fifty drachmas are no more to me.** Dionysius
once bade him select which he pleased of three beautiful
courtesans ; and he carried off all three, saying that even
Paris did not get any good by prefering one beauty to the
rest. However, they say, that when he had carried them as
far as the vestibule, he dismissed them; so easily inclined
was he to select or to disregard things. On which account
Strato, or, as others will have it, Plato, said to him, " You are
the only man to whom it is given to wear both a whole cloak
and rags/* Once when Dionysius spit at him, he put up with
it ; and when some one found fault with him, he said, '* Men
endure being wetted by the sea in order to catch a tench,
and shall not I endure to be sprinkled with wine to catch a
sturgeon ?"
IV. Once Diogenes, who was washing vegetables, ridiculed
him as he passed by, and said, *' If you had learnt to eat these
vegetables, you would not have been a slave in the palace of a
tyrant." But Aristippus replied, •* And you, if you had known
how to behave among men, would not have been washing
vegetables." Being asked once what advantage he had derived
from philosophy, he said, ** The power of associating confidently
* This is exacUy the character that Horace gives of him : —
Omnis Aristippum decuit color et status et res ;
Tentantem majora^ fere prsesentibus aequum. —
JSjp, I 28, 24.
ARISnPPUS. 83
with every body." When he was reproached for living extra-
Tagantly, he replied, *' If extravagance had been a £9iult, it
vroald not have had a place in the festivals of the Gods." At
another time he was asked what advantage philosophers had
over other men ; and he replied, '' If all the laws should be
abrogated, we should still Hve in the same manner as we do
now." Once, when Dionysius asked him why the philosophers
haunt the doors of the rich, but the rich do not frequent
those of the philosophers, he said, " Because the first know what
they want, but the second do not."
On one occasion he was reproached by Plato for living in an
expensive way ; and he replied, '* Does not Dionysius seem to
you to be a good man ?" And as he said that he did ; " And
yet," said he, " he Hves in a more expensive manner than I
do, 80 that there is no impossibility in a person's living both
expensively and well at the same time." He was asked once
in what educated men are superior to uneducated men ; and
answered, '* Just as broken horses are superior to those that
are unbroken." On another occasion he was going into the
house of a courtesan, and when one of the young men who
were vdth him blushed, he said, " It is not the going into such
a house that is bad, but the not being able to go out.*' Once a
man proposed a riddle to him, and said, " Solve it.** " Why,
you silly fellow," said Aristippus, " do you wish me to loose
what gives us trouble, even while it is in bonds ?** A saying
of his was, " that it was better to be a beggar than an ignorant
person ; for that a beggar only wants money, but an ignorant
person wants humanity." Once when he was abused, he was
going away, and as his adversary pursued him and said, ** Why
are you going away ?'* " Because," said he, " you have a license
for speaking ill ; but I have another for declining to hear ill.**
When some one said that he always saw the philosophers at
the doors of the rich men, he said, " And the physicians also
are always seen at the doors of their patients ; but still no
one would choose for this reason to be an invalid rather than
a physician.**
Once it happened, that when he was sailing to Corinth, he
was overtaken by a violent storm ; and when somebody said,
'^ We common individuals are not afraid, but you philosophers
are behaving like cowards ;" he said, " Very likely, for we
have not both of us the same kind of souls at stake." Seeing
G 2
84 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHEBS.
m
a man who prided himself on the variety of his learning and
Accomplishments, he said, *' Those who eat most, and who
take the most exercise, are not in hotter health than they ^ho
eat just as much as is good for them ; and in the same way it
is not those who know a great many things, but they who
know what is useful who are yaluahle men." An orator had
pleaded a cause for him and gained it, and asked him after-
wards, "Now, what good did you ever get from Socrates?"
" This good," said he, " that all that you have said in my
behalf is true." He gave admirable advice to his daughter
Aretes, teaching her to despise superfluity. And being asked
by some one in what respect his son would be better if he
received a careful education, he replied, " If he gets no other
good, at aU events, when he is at the theatre, he will not be
one stone sitting upon another." Once when some one brought
his son to introduce to him, he demanded five hundred
drachmas ; and when the father said, ** Why, for such a price
as that I can buy a slave." " Buy him then," he replied,
" and you will have a pair."
It was a saying of his that he took mbney from his acquaint-
ances not in order to use it himself, but to make them aware
in what they ought to spend their money. On one occasion,
being reproached for having employed a hired advocate in a
cause that he had depending : ** Why not," said he ; " when
I have a dinner, I hire a cook." Once he was compelled by
Dionysius to repeat some philosophical sentiment; " It is an
absurdity," said he, ** for you to learn of me how to speak, and
yet to teach me when I ought to speak :" and as Dionysius was
offended at this, he placed him at the lowest end of the table ;
on which Aristippus said, " You wish to make this place more
respectable." A man was one day boasting of his skill as a
diver ; " Are you not ashamed," said Aristippus, " to pride
yourself on your performance of the duty of a dolphin ?" On
one occasion he was asked in what respect a wise man is
superior to one who is not wise ; and his answer was, ** Send
them both 'naked among strangers, and you will find out."
A man was boasting of being able to drink a great deal without
being drunk ; and he said, '* A mule can do the very same
thing." When a man reproached him for living with a mistress,
he said, ** Does it make any difference whether one takes a
house in which many others have lived before one, or one
ARISTIPPUS. 85
where no one has ever lived?" and his reprover said, "No.**
" Well, does it make any difference whether one sails in a ship
in which ten thousand people have sailed hefore one, or whether
one sails in one in which no one has ever embarked ?** " By
no means,*' said the other. *' Just in the same way/* said he»
" it makes no difference whether one lives with a woman with
whom numbers have lived, or with one with whom no one has
lived.'* When a person once blamed him for taking money from
his pupils, after having been himself a pupil of Socrates : ** To
be sure I do,** he replied, " for Socrates too, when some friends
sent their com and wine, accepted a little, and sent the rest
back; for he had the chief men of the Athenians for his
purveyors. But I have only Eutychides, whom I have bought
with money.** And he used to live with Lais the courtesan,
as Sotion tells us in the Second Book of his Successions.
Accordingly, when some one reproached him on her account,
he made answer, ** I possess her, but I am not possessed by
her; since the best thing is to possess pleasures without being
their slave, not to be devoid of pleasures." When some one
blamed him for the expense he was at about his food, he said,
" Would you not have bought those things yourself if they had
cost three obols ?'* And when the other admitted that he*
would, " Then,*' said he, " it is not that I am fond of pleasure,
but that you are fond of money.'* On one occasion, when
Simus, the steward of Dionysius, was showing him a magnificent
house, paved with marble (but Simus was a Phrygian, and a
great toper), he hawked up a quantity of saliva and spit in his
face ; and when Simus was indignant at this, he said, " I could
not find a more suitable place to spit in."
Charondas, or as some say, PhsBdon, asked him once,
"Who are the people who use perfumes ?" ** I do,** said he,
" wretched man that I am, and the king of the Persians is
still more wretched than I ; but, recollect, that as no animal
is the worse for having a pleasant scent, so neither is a man ;
but plague take those wretches who abuse our beautiful
unguents.'* On another occasion, he was asked how Socrates'
^ed; and he made answer, ** As I should wish to die m3rself.'*
When Polyxenus, the Sophist, came to his house and beheld
his women, and the costly preparation that was made for
dinner, and then blamed him for all this luxury, Aristippus
a^ter a while said, " Can you stay with me to day ?** and when
86 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
Polyxenus consented, " Why then," said he, "did you blame
me ? it seems that you blame not the luxury, but the expense
of it." When his servant was once carrying some money
along the road, and was oppressed by the weight of it (as
Bion relates in his Dissertations), he said to him, "Drop what
is beyond your strength, and only cariy what you can." Once
he was at sea, and seeing a pirate yessel at a distance, he
began to count his money ; and then he let it drop into the
sea, as if unintentionally, and began to bewail his loss ; but
others say that he said besides, that it was better for the
money to be lost for the 'toke of Aristippus, than Aristippus
for the s^e of his money. On one occasion, when Dionysius
asked him why he had come, he said, to give others a share
of what he had, and to receive a share of what he had not ;
but some report that his answer was, " When I wanted wisdom,
I went to Socrates ; but now that I want money, I have come
to you." He found fault with men, because when they are
at sales, they examine the articles offered very carefully, but
yet they approve of men's lives without any examination.
Though some attribute this speech to Diogenes. They say
that once at a banquet, Dionysias desired all the guests to
dance in purple garments ; but Plato refused, saying : —
** I could not wear a woman's robe, when I
Was bom a man, and of a manly race."
But Aristippus took the garment, and when he was about
to dance, he said very wittily : —
" She who is chaste, will not corrupted be
By Bacchanalian revels."
He was once asking a favour of Dionysius for a friend, and
when he could not prevail, he fell at his feet ; and when some
one reproched him for such conduct, he said, '* It is not I who
am to blame, but Dionysius who has his ears in his feet."
When he was staying in Asia, and was taken prisoner by
Artaphemes the Satrap, some one said to him, " Are you still
cheerful and sanguine ?" " When, you silly fellow," he replied,
" can I have more reason to be cheerful than now when I am
on the point of conversing with Artaphemes ?" It used to be a
saying of his, that those who had enjoyed the encyclic course
of education, but who had omitted philosophy, were like the
suitors of. Penelope ; for that they gained over Melantho and.
ARISTIPPUS. 87
Poljdora and the other maid-servants, and found it easier to
do that than to marry the mistress. And Ariston said in
like manner, that Ulysses \vhen he had gone to the shades
below, saw and conversed with nearly all the dead in those
regions, but could not get a sight of the Queen herself.
On another occasion, Aristippus being asked what were the
most necessary things for well-bom boys to learn, said, " Those
things which they will put in practice when they become men."
And when some one reproached him for having come from
Socrates to Dionysius, his reply was, " I went to Socrates
because I wanted instruction (raidsTixg), and I have come to
Dionysius because I want diversion (^aidt&i). As he had
made money by having pupils, Socrates once said to him,
"Where did you get so much?" and he answered, ••Where
you got a Htde." When his mistress said to him, •• I am in
the &mily way by you," he said, •• You can no more tell that,
than you could tell, after you had gone through a thicket,
which thorn had scratched you.'* And when some one blamed
him for repudiating his son, as if he were not really his, he
said, •• I know that phlegm, and I know that lice, proceed
from us, but still we cast them away as useless.*' One day,
when he had received some money from Dionysius, and Plato
had received a book, he said to a man who jeered him, *• The
fact is, money is what I want, and books what Plato wants."
When he was asked what it was for which he was reproached
by Dionysius, ''The same thing," said he, ''for which others
reproach me.** One day he asked Dionysius for some money,
who said, •• But you told me that a wise man would never be
in want ;** •• Give me some,** Aristippus rejoined, •• and then
we will discuss that point ;" Dionysius gave him some, ** Now
then,** said he, *• you see that I do not want money.** When
Dionysius said to him ; —
" For be who does frequent a tyrant's court,*
Becomes bis slave, though free when first he came :**
He took him up, and replied : —
" That man is but a slave who comes as free."
This story is told by Diocles, in his book on the Lives of the
* Plutarch, in his life of Pompey, attributes these Hnes to Sophocles,
but does not mention the play in which they occurred.
88 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
Philosophers ; hut others attribute the rejoinder to Plato. He
ODce quarrelled Tvith JEschines, and presently afterwards said
to him, " Shall we not make it up of our own accord, and cease
this folly ; hut will you wait till some blockhead reconciles us
over our cups?" "With all my heart," said Mschmes.
** Recollect, then," said Aristippus, " that I, who am older
than you, have made the first advances." And ^schines
answered, " You say well, by Juno, since you are fiar better
than I ; for I began the quarrel, but you begin the friendship."
And these are the anecdotes which are told of him.
V. Now there were four people of the name of Aristippus ;
one, the man of whom we are now speaking ; the second, the
man who wrote the history of Arcadia ; ^e third was one
who, because he had been brought up by his mother, had the
name of fifir^obidavrof given to him ; and he was the grandson
of the former, being his daughter's son ; the fourth was a phi-
losopher of the New Academy.
VI. There are three books extant, written by the Cyrenaic
philosopher, which are, a history of Africa, and which were sent
by him to Dionysius ; and there is another book containing
twenty-five dialogues, some written in the Attic, and some in
the Doric dialect. And these are the titles of the Dialogues —
Artabazus ; to the Shipwrecked Sailors ; to the Exiles ; to a Beg
gar ; to Lais ; to Poms ; to Lais about her Looking-glass ; Mer-
cury ; the Dream ; to the President of the Feast ; Philomelus ;
to his Domestics ; to those who reproached him for possessing
old ynne and mistresses ; to those who reproached him for
spending much money on his eating ; a Letter to Arete his
daughter ; a letter to a man who was training himself for the
Olympic games ; a book of Questions; another book of Questions ;
a Dissertation addressed to Dionysius ; an Essay on a Statue ;
an Essay on the daughter of Dionysius; a book addressed
to one who thought himself neglected ; another to one who
attempted to give him advice. Some say, also, that he wrote
six books of dissertations ; but others, ^e chief of whom is
Sosicrates of Rhodes, affirm that he never wrote a single thing.
According to the assertions of Sotion in his second book ; and
of Panoetius, on the contrary, he composed the following books,
—one concerning Education ; one concerning Virtue ; one called
An Exhoi-tation ; Artabazus ; the Shipwrecked Men ; the
Exiles ; six books of Dissertations ; three books of Apoph-
ARISTIPPUS. 89
thegms ; an essay addressed to Lais ; one to Porus ; one to
Socrates ; one on Fortune. And he used to define the chief
good as a gentle motion tending to sensation.
VII. But since we have written his life, let us now speak
of the Gyrenaics who came after him ; some of whom called
themselves Hegesiaci, some Annicerci, others Theodorei. And
let us also enumerate the disciples of Phsedo, the chief of whom
were the Eretrians. Now the pupils of Aristippus were his
own daughter Arete, and ^thiops of Ptolemais, and Antipater
of Gyrene. Arete had for her pupil the Aristippus who was
sumamed /irir^odidavroi, whose disciple was Theodorus the
atheist, but who was afterwards called &ihg. Antipater had
for a pupil Epitimedes of Gyrene, who was the master of PyrsB-
bates, who was the master of Hegesias, who was sumamed
miftt^dmrog (persuading to die), and of Anniceris who ransomed
Plato.
VIII. These men then who continued in the school of Aris-
tippus, and were called Gyrenaics, adopted the following
opinions. — They said that ^ere were two emotions of the
mind, pleasure and pain ; that the one, namely pleasure, was a
moderate emotion ; the other, namely pain, a rough one. And
that no one pleasure was different from or more pleasant than
another ; and that pleasure was praised by all animals, but
pain avoided. They said also that pleasure belonged to the
body, and constituted its chief good, as Parsetius also tells us
in his book on Sects ; but the pleasure which they call the
chief good, is not that pleasure as a state, which consists in
the absence of all pain, and is a sort of undisturbedness, which
is what Epicurus admits as such ; for the Gyrenaics think that
there is a distinction between the chief good and a life of hap-
piness, for that the chief good is a particular pleasure, but that
happiness is a state consisting of a number of particular
pleasures, among which, both those which are past, and those
which are future, are both enumerated. And they consider
that particular pleasure is desirable for its own sake ; but that
happiness is desirable not for its own sake, but for that of the
particular pleasure. And that the proof that pleasure is the
chief good is that we are from our childhood attracted to it
without any deliberate choice of our own ; and that when we
have obtained it, we do not seek anything further, and also tliat
there is nothing which we avoid so much as we do its opposite^
90 LIVES OP EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
which is pain. And they assert, too, that pleasure is a good,
even if it arises from the most unbecoming causes, as Hippo-
botus tells us in his Treatise on Sects ; for even if an action be
ever so absurd, still the pleasure which arises out of it is de-
sirable, and a good.
Moreover, the banishment of pain, as it is called by Epicurus,
appears to the Cyrenaics not to be pleasure ; for neither is the
absence of pleasure pain, for both pleasure and pain consist in
motion ; and neither the absence of pleasure nor the absence
of pain are motion. In fact, absence of pain is a condition
like that of a person asleep. They say also that it is possible
that some persons may not desire pleasure, owing to some per-
versity of mind ; and that all the pleasures and pains of the
mind, do not all originate in pleasures and pains of the body,
for that pleasure often arises from the mere fact of the pros-
perity of one's country, or from one's own ; but they deny that
pleasure is caused by either the recollection or the anticipation
of good fortune — ^though Epicurus asserted that it was — for the
motion of the mind is put an end to by time. They say, too,
that pleasure is not caused by simple seeing or hearing. Ac-
cordingly we listen with pleasure to those who give a repre-
sentation of lamentations ; but we are pained when we see
men lamenting in reality. And they called the absence of
pleasure and of pain intermediate states ; and asserted that
corporeal pleasures were superior to mental ones, and corpo-
real sufferings worse than mental ones. And they argued
that it was on this principle that offenders were punished with
bodily pain ; for they thought that to suffer pain was hard, but
that to be pleased was more in harmony with the nature of
man, on which account also they took more care of the body
than of the mind.
And although pleasure is desirable for its own sake, still
they admit that some of the efficient causes of it are often
troublesome, and as such opposite to* pleasure ; so that they
think that an assemblage of all the pleasures which produce
happiness, is the most difficult thing conceivable. But they
admit that every wise man does not live pleasantly, and that
every bad man does not live unpleasantly, but that it is only a
general rule admitting of some exceptions. And they think it
sufficient if a person enjoys a happy time in consequence of
pne pleasure which befalls him. They say that prudence is a
' AMSTIPPUS. 91
good, but is not desirable for its own sake, but for tbe sake
of those things which result from it That a friend is desirable
for the sake of the use which we can make of him ; for that the
parts of the body also are loved while they are united to the
body ; and that some of the virtues may exist even in the
foolish. They consider that bodily exercise contributes to the
comprehension of virtue ; and that the wise man will feel
neither envy, nor love, nor superstition ; for that these things
originate in a fallacious opinion. They admit, at the same
time, that he is liable to grief and fear, for that these are
natural emotions. They said also that wealth is an efficient
cause of pleasure, but that it is not desirable for its own sake.
That the sensations are things which can be comprehended ;
but they limited this assertion to the sensations themselves, and
did not extend it to the causes which produce them. They'lefb
out all investigation of the subjects of natural philosophy, because
of the evident impossibility of comprehending them ; but they
applied themselves to the study of logic, because of its utility.
Meleager, in the second book of his Treatise on Opinions, and
Clitomachus in the first book of his Essay on Sects says, that
they thought natural philosophy and dialectics useless, for that
the man who had learnt to understand the question of good
and evil could speak with propriety, and was free from super-
stition, and escaped the fear of death, without either. They
also taught that there was nothing naturally and intrinsically
just, or honourable, or disgraceful ; but that things were con-
sidered so because of law and fsishion. The good man will do
nothing out of the way, because of the punishments which are
imposed on, and the discredit which is attached to, such actions ;
and that the good man is a wise man. They admit, too, that
there is such a thing as improvement in philosophy, and in
other good studies. And they say that one man feels grief more
tlian another ; and that the sensations are not always to be
trusted as fjEiithful guides.
IX. But the philosophers who were called Hegesiaci, adopted
the same chief goods, pleasure and pain ; and they denied
that there was any such thmg as gratitude, or friendship, or
beneficence, because we do not choose any of those things for
their own sake, but on account of the use of which they are,
and on account of these other things which cannot subsist with-
out them. But they teach that complete happiness cannot
92 UTEB OF EHDTESt FOfLOSOFHEBS.
po00ib1j exist ; for that the body is fbll of numj sensatioiis, and
that the nund sympadiizcs with the body, mnd is troubled when
that is troablc^, and also that iiMtime prevents many things
wfaidi we cherished in anticipation ; so that for all these reasons,
perfect hi^piness elndes oor grasp. MoreoTer, that both life
and death are desirable. They also say that there is nothing
natorally pleasant or unpleasant, bat that owing to want, or
farity, or satiety, some men are pleased and some vexed ; and
that wealth and poverty have no influence at all on pleasure, for
that rich men are not affected by pleasure in a different manner
from poor men. In the same way they say that slavery and
freedpm are things indifferent, if measured by the standard of
pleasure, and nobility and baseness oi birth, and glory and
infieuny. They add that, for the foolish man it is expedient to
live, but to the wise man it is a matter of indifference ; and
that the wise man will do everything for his own sake ; for that
he will not consider any one else of equal importance with
himself; and he will see that if he were to obtain ever such
great advantages from any one else, they would not be equal
to what he could himself bestow. They excluded the sensa-
tions, inasmuch as they had no certain knowledge about them ;
but they recommended the doing of everything which appeared
consistent with reason.
They asserted also that errors ought to meet with pardon ;
for that a man did not err intentionally, but because he was
influenced by some external circumstance ; and that one ought
not to hate a person who has erred, but only to teach lum
better. They likewise said that the wise man would not be so
much absorbed in the pursuit of what is good, as in the attempt
to avoid what is bad, considering the chief good to be living
free from all trouble and pain : and that this end was attained
best by those who looked upon the efficient causes of pleasure
as indifferent.
X. The Annicereans,in many respects, agreed with these last ;
but they admitted the existence in life of friendship and gratitude
and respect for one's parents, and the principle of endeavouring to
serve one's country. On which principle, even if the wise man
should meet with some annoyance, he would be no less happy,
even though he should have but few actual pleasures. They
thought that the happiness of a friend was not to be desired by
us for its own sake ; for that in fact suoh happiness was not
AKTSTIPPUS. 93
'capable of being felt by the person's neighbour ; and that
reason is not sufficient to give one confidence, and to authorise
one to look down upon the opinions of the multitude ; but that
one must learn a deference for the sentiments of others by cus-
tom, because the opposite bad disposition being bred up with
infirm and early age. They also taught that one ought not to
make friends solely on account of the advantage that we may
derive from them, and not discard them when these hopes or
advantages fail ; but that we ought rather to cultivate them on
account of one's natural feelings of benevolence, in compliance
with which we ought also to encounter trouble for their sakes,
so that though tfiey consider pleasure the chief good, and
the deprivation of it an evil, still they think that a man ought
voluntarily to submit to this deprivation out of his regard for
his friend,
XI. The Theodereans, as they are called, derived theur
name from the Theodorus who has been already mentioned,
and adopted all his doctrines.
XII. Now Theodorus utterly discarded all previous opinions
about the Gods : and we have met with a book of his which is
entitled, On Gods, which is not to be despised ; and it is
from that that they say that Epicurus derived the principal
portions of his sentiments. But Theodorus had been a pupil
of Anniceris, and of Dionysius the Dialectician, as Antisthene^
tells us in his Successions of Philosophers.
XIII. He considered joy and grief as the chief goods :
and that the former resulted from knowledge, and the latter
from ignorance. And he called prudence and justice goods :
the contrary qualities evils, and pleasure and pain something
intermediate. He discarded friendship from his system,
because it could not exist either in foolish men or in wise
men. For that, in the case of the former, friendship
was at an end the moment that the advantage to be derived
from it was out of sight. And that wise men were sufficient
for themselves, and so had no need of friends. He used also
to say that it was reasonable for a good man not to expose
himself to danger for the sake of his country, for that he
ought not to discard his own prudence for the sake of
benefiting those who had none. And he said that a wise
man's country was the World. He allowed that a wise man
might steal, and commit adultery and sacrilege, at propec
04 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHEBS.
seasons : for that none of these actions were disgraceful hy
nature, if one only put out of sight the common opinion
about them, which owes its existence to the consent of fools.
And he said that the wise man would indulge his passions
openly, without any regard to circumstances : on which
principle he used to ask the following questions : "Is a
woman who is well instructed in literature of use just in pro-
portion to the amount of her literary knowledge ?" " Yes," said
the person questioned. " And is a boy, and is a youth, useful
in proportion to his acquaintance with literature ?" ** Yes."
** Is not then, also, a beautiful woman useful in proportion as
she is beautiful ; and a boy and a youth useful in proportion
to their beauty ?" " Yes." " Well, then, a handsome boy
and a handsome youth must be useful exactly in proportion
as they are handsome?" "Yes." "Now the use of beauty
is, to be embraced." And when this was granted he pressed
the argument thus : — If then a man embraces a woman just
as it is useful that he should, he does not do wrong ; nor,
again, will he be doing wrong in employing beauty for the
purposes for which it is useful. And with such questions as
these he appeared to convince his hearers.
XIV. But he appears to have got the name of &ihg from
Stilpo one day asking him, ** Are you, Theodorus, what you
say you are ?" And when he said he was, " And you said
that you are khg,'* continued his questioner ; he admitted that
also. ** Then," continued the other, " you kre tfgog.'* And as
he willingly received the title, the other laughed and said,
" But you, vn-etched man, according to this principle, you
would also admit that you were a raven, or a hundred otiier
things.'* One day Theodorus sat down by Euryclides the
hierophant, and said to him, " Tell me now, Euryclides, who
are they who behave impiously with respect to the mysteries ?"
And when Euryclides answered, " Those who divulge them to
the uninitiated ; " Then," said he, " you also are impious, for
you divulge them to those who are not initiated.'*
XV. And indeed he was very near being brought before
the Areopagus if Demetrius of Phalereus had not saved
him. But Amphicrates in Ins Essay on Illustrious Men,
says that he was condemned to drink hemlock.
XVI. While he was staying at the court of Ptolemy, tlia
son of Lagus, he was sent once by him to Lysimachus as au
ABisnppus. 95
ambassador. And as he was talking very freely, Ljsimachus
said to him, " Tell me, Theodorus, have not you been banished
from Athens ? " And he replied, you have been rightly in-
formed ; for the city of the Athenians could not bear me, just
as Semele could not bear Bacchus ; and so we were both cast
out." And when Lysimachus said again, " Take care that you
do not come to me again ;** ** I never will,'* he replied, '* un-
less Ptolemy sends me." And as Mythras, the steward of
Lysimachus was present, and said, " You appear to me to be
the only person who ignores both Gods and Sovereigns ;**
'* How,'* rejoined Theodorus, " can you say that I ignore the
Gods, when I look upon you as their enemy ? *
XVII. They say also that on one occasion he came to
Corinth, bringing with him a great many disciples ; and that
Metrocles the Cynic, who was washing leeks said so him,
" You, who are a Sophist, would not have wanted so many
pupils, if you had washed vegetables." And Theodorus, talking
him up, rephed, "And if you had known how to associate
with men, you would not have cared about those vegetables."
But this rejoinder, as I have said already, is attributed both to
Diogenes and Aristippus.
XVIII. Such was Theodorus, and such were his circum-
stances and opinions. But at last he went away to Cyrene,
and lived there with Megas, being treated by him with the
greatest distinction. And when he was first driven away from
Cvrene, he is reported to have said very pleasantly, " You do
wiong. 0 men ofCyrene, driving me frim Africa to Greece."
XIX. But there were twenty different people of the name
of Theodorus. The first was a Samian, the son of Rhceus ; he
it was who advised the putting of coals imder the foundations
of the temple of Diana at Ephesus ; for as the ground was very
swampy, he said that the coals, having got rid of their ligneous
qualities, would retain their solidity in a way that could not be
impaired by water. THe second was a Cyrenean, a geome-
trician, and had Plato for one of his pupils. The third was
the philosopher whom we have been describing. The fourth
was an author who wrote a very remarkable treatise on the
art of exercising the voice. The fifth was a man who wrote a
treatise on Musicial Composers, beginning with Terpander.
The sixth was a Stoic. The seventh was the historian of
Eome. The eighth was a Syracusan, who wrote an Essay on
A
96 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
Tactics. The ninth was a citizen of Bjzantium, who was a
political orator. The tenth was another orator, who is men-
tioned by Aristotle in his Epitome of the Orators. The eleventh
was a Theban, a statuary. The twelfth was a painter, who is
mentioned by Polemo. The thirteenth was also a painter, who
is spoken of by Menodotus. The fourteenth was an Ephesian
a painter, mentioned by Theophanes in his Essay on Painting.
The fifteenth was an epigrammatic poet. The sixteenth wrote
an essay on Poets. The seventeenth was a physician, a pupil
•of Athenseas. The eighteenth was a Ghian, a Stoic philo-
sopher. The nineteentli was a citizen of MUetus, another
Stoic. The twentieth was a tragic poet. ^
LIFE OF PflCEDO.
I. Ph(Edo the Elean, one of the EupatridsB, was taken pri-
soner at the time of the subjugation of his country, and was
compelled to submit to the vilest treatment. But while he
was standing in the street, shutting the door» he met with
Socrates, who desired Alcibiades, or as some say. Onto, to
ransom him. And after that time he studied philosophy as
'became a free man. But Hieronymus, in his essay on sus-
pending one*s judgment, calls him a slave.
II. And he wrote dialogues, of which we have genuine
copies ; by name — Zopyrus, Simon, and Nicias (but tiie gen-
uineness of this one is disputed) ; Medius, which some people
attribute to ^schines, and others to Polysenus ; Antimachus,
or the Elders (this too is a disputed one) ; the Scythian dis-
courses, and these, too, some attribute to u^schines.
III. But his successor was Phistamus of Elis ; and the next
in succession to him were Menedemus of Eretria, and Ascle-
piades of Philias, who came over from Stilpo. And down to
the age of these last, they were called the Eliac school ; but
after the time of Menedemus, they were called the Eretrians.
And we will speak of Menedemus hereafter, because he was
the founder of a new sect.
EUCUDES. 97
LIFE OF EUCLIDES.
I. EucLTDES was anative of Megara on the Isthmus, or of Gela,
according to some writers, whose statement is mentioned by
Alexander in his Successions: He devoted himself to the
study of the writings of Parmenides ; and his successors were
called the philosophers of the Megaric school ; after that they
were called the Contentious school, and still later, the Dialec-
ticians, which name was first given to them by Dionysius the
Carthaginian ; because they carried on their investigations by
question and answer. Hermodorus says that after the death of
Socrates, Plato and the other philosophers came to Euclides,
because they feared the cruelty of the tyrants.
II. He used to teach that tJie chief good is unity ; but that
it is known by several names ; for at one time people call it
prudence ; at another time God ; at another time intellect, and
so on. But everything which was contrary to good, he dis-
carded, denying its existence. And the proofs which he used
to bring forward to support his arguments, were not those which
proceed on assumptions, but on conclusions. He also rejected
all that sort of reasoning which proceeds on comparison,
saying that it must be founded either on things which are like,
or on things which are unlike. If on things which are like,
then it is better to reason about the things themselves, than
about those which resemble them ; and if on things which are
unlike, then the comparison is quite useless. And on this
account Timon uses the following language concerning him,
where he also attacks all the other philosophers of the Socratic
school : —
But I do care for none of all these triflers, '
Nor for any one else ; not for your Phsedon,
Whoever he may be ; not for the quarrelsome
Euclides, who bit all the Megareans
With love of fierce contention.
III. He wrote six dialogues — ^the Lamprias, the ^schines,
the Phoenix, the Crito, the Alcibiades, and the Amatory dia-
logue.
IV. Next in succession to Euclides, came Eubulides of
Miletus, who handed down a great may arguments in dialec-
H
98 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
tics ; such as the Lying one ; the Concealed one ; the Electra ;
the Veiled one ; the Sorites ; the Homed one ; the Bald one.*
And one of the Comic poets speaks of him in the following
terms: —
Eubulides, that most contentiouB Bophist,
Asking his homed quibbles, and preplezing
The natives with his false arrogant speeches,
Has gone with all the fluency of Demosthenes.
For it seems that Demosthenes had been his pupil, and that
being at first unable to pronounce the C, he got rid of that
defect. Eubulides had a quaxrel with Aristotle, and was con-
stantly attacking him.
V. Among the different people who succeeded Eubulides,
was Alexinus of Elis, a man very fond of argument, on which
account he was nicknamed 'EXsy^tvog.^ He had an especial
quarrel with Zeno ; and Hermi[)pus relates of him that he went
from Elis to Olympia, and studied philosophy there ; and that
when his pupils asked him why he lived there, he said that he
wished to establish a school which should be called the Olym-
pic school ; but that his pupils being in distress, through want
of means of support, and finding the situation unhealthy for
them, left him ; and that after that Alexinus lived by himself,
with only one servant. And after that, when swimming in the
* The French translator gives the following examples, to show what
is meant by these several kinds of quibbling arguments :—
The lying one is this : — Is the man a liar who says that he tells lies.
If he is, then he does not tell lies ; and if he does not tell lies, is he a
liar?
The concealed one : — Do you know this man who is concealed ? If
you do not, you do not know your own father ; for he it is who is
concealed.
The veiled one is much the same as the preceding.
The electra is a quibble of the same kind as the two preceding ones :
Electra sees Orestes : she knows that Orestes is her brother, but does
not know that the man she sees is Orestes ; therefore she does know, and
loes not know, her brother at the same time.
The Sorites is universally known.
The bald one is a kind of Sorites ; pulling one hair out of a man's
head will not make him bald, nor two, nor three, and so on till every
hair in his head is pulled out.
The horned one : — ^You have what you have not lost. You have not
lost horns, therefore you have horns.
t From l\iyx^» ^ confute.
EUCLIDBS. 99
Alpheus, he was pricked by a reed, and the injury proved
fatal, and he died. And >ve have written an epigram on him
which runs thus : —
Then the report, alas I was true,
• That an unhappy man,
While swimming tore his foot against a nail ;
For the illustrious sage,
Qood Alezinus, swimming in the Alpheus, ^
Died from a hostile reed.
And he wrote not only against Zeno, hut he composed other
works also, especially one against Ephorus the historian.
VI. One of the school of Eubulides was Euphantus of Olyn-
thus, who wrote a history of the events of Ins own time ; he
also composed several tragedies, for which he got great distinc-
tion at the festivals. And he was the preceptor of Antigonus,
the king to whom he dedicated a treatise on Monarchy, which
had an exceedingly high reputation. And at last he died of old
age.
VII. There are also other pupils of Eubulides, among whom
is ApoUonius Cronus, who was the preceptor of Diodorus of
lasos, the son of Aminias ; and he too was surnamed Cronus,
and is thus mentioned by Callimachus in his epigrams : —
MomuB himself did carve upon the walls,
Cronus is wise.
And he was a dialectician, and, as some believe, he was the
first person who invented the Concealed argument, and the
Homed one. When he was staying at the court, of Ptolemy
Soter, he had several dialectic questions put to him by Stilpo ;
and as he was not able to solve them at the moment, he was
reproached by the king with many hard words, and among
other things, he was nicknamed Cronus, out of derision. So
he left the banquet, and wrote an essay on the question of
Stilpo, and then died of despondency. And we have written
the following epigram on him : —
0 Diodorus Cronus, what sad fate
Buried you in despair ?
So that you hastened to the shades below,
Perplexed by Stilpo's quibbles —
You would deserve your name of Cronus* better,
If C and r were gone.
* "Kpovoiii take away K. p., leaves ovo^f an ass.
H 2
100 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
VIII. One of the successors of Euclides was Icthyas, the
son of Metellus, a man of great eminence, to whom Diogenes
the Cynic addressed a dialogue. And Glinomachus of Therium,
who was the first person who ever wrote about axioms and
categorems, and things of that kind. And Stilpo the Megarian,
a most illustrious philosopher, whom we must now speak of.
LIFE OF STILPO.
I. Stilpo, a native of Megara in Greece, was a pupil of
some of Euclides' school. But some say that he was a pupil
of Euclides himself. And also of Thrasymachus, the Corin-
thian, who was a friend of Icthyas, as Heraclides informs us.
II. And he was so much superior to all his fellows in com-
mand of words and in acuteness, that it may almost be said
that all Greece fixed its eyes upon him, and joined the
Megaric school. And concerning him Philippus Qf Megara
speaks thus, word for word : — " For he carried off from Theo-
phrastus, Metrodorus the speculative philosopher, and Tima-
goras of Gela ; and Aristotle the Cyrenaic, he robbed of Clitar-
chus and Simias ; and from the dialecticians' school also he won
men over, carrying off Poeoneius from Aristides, and Dippilus
of the Bosphorus from Euphantus, and also Myrmex of the
Venites, who had both come to him to argue against him, but
they became- converts and his disciples." And besides these
men, he attracted to his school Phrasidemus the Peripatetic, a
natural philosopher of great ability ; and Alcimus the rheto-
rician, the most eminent orator in all Greece at that time ; and
he won over Crates, and great numbers of others, and among
them Zeno the Phoenician.
III. And he was very fond of the study of politics. And he
was married. But he lived also with a courtesan, named
Nicaret/O, as Onetor tells us somewhere. And he had a licentious
daughter, who was married to a friend of his named Simias, a
citizen of Syracuse. And as she would not live in an orderly
manner, some one told Stilpo that she was a disgrace to him.
But he said, *' She is not more a disgrace to me than I am an
honour to her."
STILPO. 101
IV. Ptolemy Soter, it is said, received him with great
honour ; and when he had made himself master of Megara, he
gave him money, and invited him to sail with him to Egypt.
But he accepted only a moderate sum of money, and declined
the journey proposed to him, hut went over to -^gina, until
Ptolemy had sailed. Also when Demetrius, the son of Anti-
gonus had taken Megara, he ordered Stilpo's house to be saved,
and took care that everything that had been plundered from
him should be restored to him. But when he wished Stilpo
to give him in a list of all that he had lost, he said that he
had lost nothing of his own ; for that no one had taken from
him his learning, and that he still had his eloquence and his
knowledge. And he conversed with Demetrius on the subject
of doing good to men with such power, that he became a
zealous hearer of his.
V. They say that he once put such a question as this to a
man, about the Minerva of Phidias : — ** Is Minerva the Goddess
the daughter of Jupiter ?" And when the other said, " Yes ; "
" But this," said he, " is not the child of Jupiter, but of
Phidias." And when he agreed that it was so — ** This then,"
he continued,. " is not a God." And when he was brought
before the Areopagus for this speech, he did not deny it, but
maintained that he had spoken correctly ; for that she was not
a God (khg) but a Goddess ($ea) ; for that Gods were of the
male sex only. However the judges of the Areopagus ordered
him to leave the city ; and on this occasion, Theodoras, who
was nicknamed dihg, said in derision, ** Whence did Stilpo learn
this ? and how could he tell whether she was a God or a God-
dess? " But Theodoras was in truth a most impudent fellow.
But Stilpo was a most witty and elegant-minded man. Accord-
ingly when Crates asked him if the Gods delighted in adoration
and prayer ; they say that he answered, '* Do not ask these
questions, you foolish man, in the road, but in private.'* And
they say too that Bion, when he was asked whether there were
any Gods, answered in the same spirit : —
" Will you not first, 0 ! miserable old man,
Remove the multitude f
VI. But Stilpo was a man of "simple character, and free
from all trick and humbug, and universally affable.. Accord-
• The quibble here is, that 9(6q is properly only masculine, though
it is sometimes used as feminine.
103 LIVES OP EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
ingly, when Crates the Cynic once refused to answer a question
that he had put to him, and only insulted his questioner —
" I knew," said Stilpo, " that he would say anydiing rather
than what he ought. And once he put a question to him, and
ofiPered him a fig at the same time ; so he took the fig and ate
it, on which Crates said, " O Hercules, I have lost my fig."
** Not only that," he replied, " but you have lost your question
too, of which the fig was the pledge.** At another time, he
saw Crates shivering in the winter, and said to him, " Crates,
you seem to me to want a new dress,** meaning, both a new
mind and a new garment ; and Crates, feeling ashamed,
answered him in the following parody : —
** There* Stilpo too, through the Megarian bounds,
Pours out deep groans, where Syphon's voice resounds,
And there he oft doth argue, while a school
Of eager pupils owns his subtle rule,
And virtue's name with eager chase pursues."
And it is said that at Athens he attracted all the citizens
to such a degree, that they used to run from their workshops
to look at him ; and when some one said to him, " Why, Stilpo,
they wonder at you as if you were a wild beast," he replied,
<* Not so ; but as a real genuine man."
VII. And he was a very clever arguer ; and rejected the
theory of species. And he used to say that a person who spoke
of man in general, was speaking of nobody ; for that he was
not speaking of this individual, nor of that one ; for speaking
in general, how can he speak more of this person than of that
person? therefore he is not speaking of this person at all.
Another of his illustrations was, ** That which is shown to me,
is not a vegetable ; for a vegetable existed ten thousand years
ago, therefore this is not a vegetable." And they say that once
when he was conversing witib Crates, he interrupted the dis-
course to go off and buy some fish ; and as Crates tried to drag
him back, and said, " You are leaving the argument ; " •' Not
at all,*' he replied," " I keep the argument, but I am leaving
you ; for the argument remains, but the fish will be sold to
some one else."
VIII. There are nine dialogues of his extant, written in a
frigid style : The Moschus ; the Cnistippus or Callias ; the
* The Greek is a parody on the descriptions of Tantalus and Sisyphus.
Horn. Od. ii 581, 592, See also, Dryden's Version, B. ii 719.
CRITO. 103
Ptolemy ; the Chcerecrates ; the Metrocles ; the Anaximenes ;
the Epigenes; the one entitled To my Daughter, and the
Aristotle.
IX. Heraclides affirms that Zeno, the founder of the Stoic
school, had heen one of his pupils.
X. Hermippus says that he died at a great age, after
drinking some wine, in order to die more rapidly. And we
have written this epigram upon him : —
Stranger, old age at first, and then disease,
A hateful pair, did lay wise Stilpo low.
The pride of Megara : he found good wine
The best of drivers for his mournful coach.
And drinking it, he drove on to the end.
And he was ridiculed by Sophibus the comic poet, in his play
called Marriages: —
f The dregs of Stilpo make the whole dicourse of this Channus.
LIFE OF CRITO.
I. Crito was an Athenian. He looked upon Socrates with
the greatest affection ; and paid such great attention to him,
that he took care that he should never be in want of anything.
II. His sons also were all constant pupils of Socrates, and
their names were Critobulus, Hermogenes, Epigenes, and
Ctesippus.
III. Crito wrote seventeen dialogues, which were all puh-
lished in one volume ; and I subjoin their titles : — ^That men
are not made good by Teaching; on Superfluity; what is
Suitable, or the Statesman ; on the Honourable ; on doing
ill ; on Good Government ; on Law ; on the Divine Being ;
on Arts ; on Society ; Protagoras, or the Statesman ; on
Letters ; on Polititical Science ; on the Honourable ; on
Learning; on Knowledge; on Science; on what Knowledge is.
104 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHEBB.
LIFE OF SIMON.
I. Simon was an Athenian, a leather-cutter. He, when-
ever Socrates came into his workshop and conversed, used to
make memorandums of all his sayings that he recollected.
II. And from this circumstance, people have called his
dialogues leathern ones. But he has written thirty-three
which, however, are all combined in one volume : — On the
Gods ; on the Good ; on the Honourable ; what the Honour-
able is ; the first Dialogue on Justice ; the second Dialogue
on Justice ; on Virtue, showing that it is not to be taught ; the
first Dialogue on Courage ; the second ; the third ; on Laws ;
on the Art of Guiding the People ; on Honour ; on Poetry,
on Good Health ; on Love ; on Philosophy : on Knowledge ;
on Music ; on Poetry ; on what the Honourable is ; on Teach-
ing; on Conversation; on Judgment; on the Existent; on
Number ; on Diligence ; on Activity : on Covetousness ; on
Insolence ; on the Honourable ; Some also add to these dia-
logues ; on taking Counsel ; on Reason or Suitableness ; on
doing Harm.
III. He is, as some people say, the first writer who reduced
the conversations of Socrates into the form of dialogues. And
when Pericles offered to provide for him, and invited him to
come to him, he said that he would not sell his freedom of
speech.
IV. There was also another Simon, who wrote a treatise on
Oratorical Art. And another, who was a physician in the
time of Seleucus Nicanor. And another, who was a statuary.
LIFE OF GLAUCO.
Glauco was an Athenian ; and there are nine dialogues
of his extant, which are all contained in one volume. The
Phidylus ; the Euripides ; the Amyntichias ; the Euthias ;
the Lysithides ; the Aristophanes ; the Cephalus ; the Anaxi-
phemus ; the Minexenus. There are thirty-two others which
go under his name, but they are spurious.
MENEDEHUS. 1 05
LIFE OF SIMIAS.
SiMEAS was a Theban ; and there are twentj-three dialogues
of his extant, contained in one single volume. On Wisdom ;
on Eatiocination ; on Music ; on Verses ; on Fortitude ; on
Philosophy ; on Truth ; on Letters ; on Teaching ; on Art ;
on Government ; on what is Becoming ; on what is Fligible,
and what Proper to be Avoided ; on A Friend ; on Knowledge ;
on the Soul ; on Living Well ; on what is Possible ; on
Money ; on Life ; on what liie Honourable is ; on Industry,
and on Love.
LIFE OF CEBES.
Cebes was a Theban, and there are three dialogues of his
extant. The Tablet ; the Seventh, and the Phiynichus.
LIFE OF MENEDEMUS.
I. This Menedemus was one of those who belonged to the
school of Phaedo ; and he was one of those who are called
TheoprobidsB, being the son of Clisthenes,a n^an of noble family,
but a poor man and a builder. And some say that he was a
tent-maker, and that Menedemus himself learned both trades.
On which account, when he on one occasion brought forward
a motion for some decree, a man of the name of Alexinius
attacked him, saying that a wise man had no need to draw a
tent nor a decree.
II. But when Menedemus was sent by the Eretriaos to
Megara, as one of the garrison, he deserted the rest, and went
to &e Academy to Plato ; and being charmed by him, he
abandoned the army altogether. And when Asclepiades, the
Phliasian, drew him over to him, he went and lived in Megara,
near Stilpo, and they both became his disciples. And from
thence they sailed to Elis, where they joined Anchipylus and
Moschus, who belonged to Phaedo 's school. And up to this
time, as I have already mentioned in my account of Phaedo,
106 LIVES OP EMINEKT FHILOSOPHEBS.
they were called Eleans ; and they were also called Eretrians,
from the native country of Menedemus, of whom I am now
speaking.
III. Now Menedemus appears to have been a very severe
and rigid man, on which account Crates, parodying a description,
speaks of him thus : —
And Asclepiades the sage of Fhlius,
And the Eretrian buU.
And Timon mentions him thus : —
Rise up, you frowning, bristling, frothy sage.
And he was a man of such excessive rigour of principle,
that when Eurylochus, of Cassandra, had been invited 'by
Antigonus, to come to him in company with Cleippides, a
youth of Cyzicus, he refused to go, for he was afraid lest
Menedemus should hear of it ; for he was very severe in his
reproofe, and veiy free spoken. Accordingly, when a young
man behaved with boldness towards him, he did not say a
word, but took a bit of stick and drew on the floor an insulting
picture ; until the young man, perceiving the insult that was
meant in the presence of numbers of people, went away. And
when Hierocles, the governor of the Pirseus, attacked him in
the temple of Amphiaraus, and said a great deal about the
taking of Eretria, he made no other reply beyond asking him
what Antigonus's object was in treating him as he did.
On another occasion, he said to a profligate man who was
giving himself airs, ** Do not you know that the cabbage is
not the only plant that has a pleasant juice, but that radishes
have it also?" And once, hearing a young man talk very
loudly, he said, " See whom you have behind you." When
Antigonus consulted him whether he should go to a certain
revel, he made no answer beyond desiring those who brought
him the message, to tell him that he was the son of a king.
When a stupid fellow once said something at random to him,
he asked him whether he had a farm ; and when he said that
he had, and a large stock of cattle, he said, *' Go then and
look after them ; lest, if you neglect them, you lose them, and
that elegant rusticity of yours with them.** He was once asked
whether a good man should marry, and his reply was, " Do I
seem to you to be a good man, or not ?*' and when the other
MENEDEMUS. 107
said he did ; " Well," said he, " and I am married." On one
occasion a person said that there were a great many » good
things, so he asked him how many ; and whether he thought
that there were more than a hundred. And as he could not
bear the extravagance of one man . who used frequently to
invite him to dinner, once when he was invited he did not
say a single word, but admonished him of his extravagance in
sOence, by eating nothing but olives.
IV. On account then of the great freedom of speech in
which he indulged, he was very near while in Cyprus, at the
court of Nicorreon, being in great danger with his friend
Asclepiades. For when the king was celebrating a festival at
the beginning of the month, and had invited them as he did
all the other philosophers ; Menedemus said, " If the assem-
blage of such men as are met here to-day is good, a festival
like this ought to be celebrated every diy : but if it is not
good, even once is too often." And as the tyrant made answer
to this speech, " that he kept this festival in order to have
leisure in it to listen to the philosophers," he behaved with
even more austerity than usual, arguing, even while the feast
was going on, that it was right on every occasion to
listen to philosophers ; and he went on in this way till, if a
flute-player had not interrupted their discusaon, they would
have been put to death. In reference to which, when they
were overtaken by a storm in a ship, they say that Asclepiades
said, " that the fine playing of a flute-player had saved them,
but the freedom of speech of Menedemus had ruined them.
V. But he was, they say, inclined to depart a good deal
from the usual habits and discipline of a school, so that he
never regarded any order, nor were the seats arranged around
properly, but every one listened to him while lecturing, stand-
ing up or sitting down, just as he might chance to be at tlie
moment, Menedemus himself setting the example of this
irregular conduct.
VI. But in other respects, it is said that he was a nervous
man, and very fond of glory ; so that, as previously he and
Asclepiades had been fellow journeymen of a builder, when
Asclepiades was naked on the roof carrying mortar, Mene-
demus would stand in front of him to screen him when he
saw any one coming.
VII. When he applied himself to politics he was so nervous,
108 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
that once, when setting down the incense, he actually missed
the incense burner. Aud on one occasion, when Crates was
standing by him, and reproaching him for meddling with
politics, he ordered some men to put him in prison. But he,
even then, continued not the less to watch him as he passed,
and to stand on tiptoe and call him Agamemnon and Hege-
sipolis.
VIII. He was also in some degree superstitious. Accord-
ingly, once, when he was at an inn with Asclepiades, and had
unintentionally eaten some meat that had been thrown away,
when he was told of it he became sick, and turned pale, imtil
Asclepiades rebuked him, telling him l^t it was not the meat
itself which disturbed him, but only the idea that he had
adopted. But in other respects he was a high minded man,
with notions such as became a gentleman.
IX. As to his habit of body, even when he was an old man
he retained all the firmness and vigour of an athlete, with
firm flesh, and a ruddy complexion, and very stout and fresh
looking. In stature he was of moderate size ; as is plain from
the statue of him which is at Eretria, in the Old Stadium.
For he is there represented seated almost naked, undoubtedly
for the purpose of displaying the greater part of his body.
X He was very hospitable and fond of entertaining his
friends ; and because Eretria was unhealthy, he used to have
a great many parties, particularly of poets and musicians.
And he was very fond of Aratus and Lycophon the tragic
poet, and Antagoras of Rhodes. And above all he applied
himself to the study of Homer ; and next to him to that of
the Lyric poets ; then to Sophocles, and also to Achseus, to
whom he assigned the second place as a writer of satiric
dramas, giving ^schylus the first. And it is from AcheBus
that he quoted these verses against the politicians of the
opposite party : —
A speedy runner once was overtaken
By weaker men than he. An eagle too.
Was beaten by a tortoise in a race.
And these lines are out of the satiric play of AchsBus,
called Omphale ; so that they are mistaken who say that he
had never read anything but the Medea of Euripides, which
is fouud, they add, in the collection of Neophron, the Sicy-
onian.
I
MENEDEMUS. 109
XI. Of masters of philosophy, he used to despise Plato and
Xenocrates, aijd Parsebates of Gyrene; and admired no one
but Stilpo. And once, being questioned about him, he said
nothing more of him than that he was a gentleman.
XII. Menedemus was not easy to be understood, and in his
conversation he was hard to argue against ; he spoke on every
subject, and had a great deal of invention and readiness. But
he was very disputatious, as Antisthenes says in his Succes-
sions ; and he used to put questions of this sort, " Is one thing
different from another thing ?" " Yes." " And is benefiting a
person something different from the good ?" " Yes." " Then the
good is not benefiting a person." And he, as it i& said, discarded
all negative axioms, using none but affirmative ones ; and of
these he only approved of the simple ones, and rejected all
that were not simple ; saying that they were intricate and
perplexing. But Heraclides says ttat in his doctrines he was a
thorough disciple of Plato, and that he scorned dialectics ; so that
once when Alexinus asked him whether he had left off beating
his" father; he said, ** I have not beaten him, and I have not
left off;" and when he said further that he ought to put an
end to the doubt by answering explicitly yes or no, " It would
be absurd," he rejoined, " to comply with your conditions,
when I can stop you at the entrance."
When Bion was attacking the soothsayers with great
perseverance, he said that he was killing the dead over again.
And once, when he heard some one assert that the greatest
good was to succeed in everything that one desires ; he said,
•' It is a much greater good to desire what is proper." But
Antigonus of Carystus, tells us that he never wrote or com-
posed any work, and never maintained any principle tenaciously.
But in cross-questioning he was so contentious as to get quite
black in the face before he went away. But though he was
so violent in his discourse, he was wonderfully gentle in bis
actions. Accordingly, though he used to mock and ridicule
Alexinus very severely, still he conferred great benefits on
him, conducting his wife from Delphi to Chalcis for him, as
she was alarmed about the danger of robbers and banditti in
the road.
XIII. And he was a very warm friend, as is plain from
his attachment to Asclepiades ; which was hardly inferior to
the friendship of Pylades and Orestes. But Asclepiades was
110 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHEBS.
the elder of the two, so that it was said* that he was the poet,
and Meuedemus the actor. And thej say that on one occasion,
ArchipoUs bequeathed them three thousand pieces of money
between them, they had 'such a vigorous contest as to which
should take the smaller share, ^t neither of them would
receive any of it
XIV. It is said that they were both married ; and that
Asclepiades was married to the mother, and Menedemus to
the daughter ; and when Asclepiades's wife died, he took the
wife of Menedemus ; and Menedemus, when he became the
chief man of the state, married another who was rich; and as they
still maintained one house in common, Menedemus entrusted
the whole management of it to his former wife. Asclepiades
died first at Eretria, being of a* great age ; having lived with
Menedemus with great economy, though they had ample
means. So that, when on one occasion, after the death of
Asclepiades, a friend of his came to a banquet, and when the
slaves refused him admittance, Menedemus ordered them to
admit him, saying that Asclepiades opened the door for him,
even now, that he was under the earth. And the men who
chiefly supported them were Hyporicus the Macedonian, and
Agetor the Lamian. And Agetor gave each of them thirty
minse, and Hipporicus gave Menedemus two thousand drachmas
to portion his daughters with ; and he had three, as Heraclides
tells us, the children of his wife, who was a native of Oropus.
XV. And he used to give banquets in this fashion : — First
of all, he would sit at duiner, with two or three friends, till
late in the day ; and then he would invite in any one who came
to see him, even if they had already dined ; and if any one
came too soon, they would walk up and down, and ask
those who came out of the house what there was on the table,
and what o'clock it was; and then, if there were only
vegetables or salt fish, they would depart ; but if they heard
it was meat, they would go in. And during the summer,
mats of rushes were laid upon the couches, and in winter soft
cushions ; and each guest was expected to bring a pillow for him-
self. And the cup that was csuried round did not hold more than
a cotyla. And the second course consisted of lupins or beans,
and sometimes fruits, such as pears, pomegranates, pulse,
and sometimes, by Jove, dried figs. And all these circum-
stances are detailed by Lycophron, in his satiric dramas, which
MENEDEMyS. II J
he inscribed with the name of Menedemus, .making his play a
panegyric on the philosopher. And the following are some of
the Imes : —
After a temperate feast^ a small-sized cup
Is handed round with moderation due ;
And conversation wise makes the dessert
XVI. At first, now, he was not thought much of, being
called cynic and trifler by the Eretrians ; but subsequently, he
wa^ so much admired by his countrymen, that they entrusted
him with the chief government of the state. And he was sent
on embassies to Ptolemy and Lysimachus, and was greatly
honoured everywhere. He was sent as envoy to Demetrius ;
and, as the city used to pay him two hundred talents a year, he
persuaded him to remit fifty. And having been falsely accused
to him, as having betrayed the city to Ptolemy, he defended
himself from the charge, in a letter which begins thus : —
" Menedemus to king Demetrius. — Health. I hear that
information has been laid before you concerning us." . .
And the tradition is, that a man of the name of jEschylus,
who was one of the opposite party in the state, was in the habit
of making these false charges. It is well known too that he
was sent on a most important embassy to Demetrius, on the
subject of Oropus, as Euphantus relates in his History.
XVII. Antigonus was greatly attached to him, and professed
himself his pupil ; and when he defeated the barbarians, near
Lysimaxjhia, Menedemus drew up a decree for him, in simple
terms, free from all flattery, which begins thus : —
" The generals and councillors have determined, since king
Antigonus has defeated the barbarians in battle, and has re-
turned to his own kingdom, and since he has succeeded in all
his measures according to his wishes, it has seemed good to the
council and to the people." . . . And from these circum-
stances^ and because of his friendship for him, as shown in
other matters, he was suspected of betraying the city to him ;
and being impeached by Aristodemus, he left the city, and re-
turned to Oropus, and there took up his abode in the temple
of Amphiaraus ; and as some golden goblets which were there
' were lost, he was ordered to depart by a general vote of the
Boeotians. Leaving Oropus, and being in a state of great
despondency, he entered his country secretly ; and taking with
112 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
him his wife and daughters, he went to the court of Antigonus^
and there died of a hroken heart.
But Heraclides gives an entirely different account of him ;
saying, that while he was the chief councillor of the Eretrians,
he more than once preserved the liberties of the city from those
who would have brought in Demetrius the tyrant ; so that he
never could have betrayed the city to Antigonus, and the
accusation must have been false ; and that he went to the
court of Antigonus, and endeavoured to effect the deliverance
of his country ; and as he could make no impression on him,
he fell into despondency, and starved himseK for seven days,
and so he died. And Antigonus of Carystus gives a similar
account : and Persseus was the only man with whom he had
an implacable quarrel ; for he thought that when Antigonus
himself was willing to re-establish the democracy among the
Eretrians for his sake, Persaeus prevented him. And on this
account Menedemus once attacked him at a banquet, saying
many other things, and among them, " He may, indeed, be a
philosopher, but he is the worst man that lives or that ever
will live."
XVIII. And he died, according to Heraclides^ at the a^e
of seventy-four. And we have written the following epigram
on him : —
IVe heard your fate, 0 MenedemuB, that of your own accord,
You starved yourself for seven days and died ; ..'
Acting like an Eretrian, but not much like a man.
For spiritless despair appears your guide.
These men then were the disciples of Socrates, and their
successors ; but we must now proceed to Plato, who founded
the Academy ; and to his successors, or at least to all those of
them who enjoyed any reputation.
|St/5^l')iC>B00K III' (Nr3- f^' K'")
LIFE OF PLATO.
*
I. Plato -was the son of Ariston and Perictione ;or Petone,
and a citizen of Athens ; and his mother traced her family back
to Solon ; for Solon had a brother named Diopidas, who had
a son named Critias, who was the father of Calloeschrus, who
was the father of that Critias who was one of the thirty tyrants,
and also of Glaucon, who was the father of Charmides and
Perictione. And she became the mother of Plato by her
husband Ariston, Plato being the sixth in descent from Solon.
And Solon traced his pedigree up to Neleus and Neptune.
They say too that on the father's side, he was descended from
Codrus, the son of Melanthus, and they too are said by Thra-
sylus to derive their origin from Neptune. And Speusippus,
in his book which is entitled the Funeral Banquet of Plato,
and Clearchus in his Panegyric on Plato, and Ansudlides in
the second book of his History of Philosophers, say that the
report at Athens was that Perictione was very beautiful, and
that Ariston endeavoured to violate her and did not succeed ;
and t^t he, after he had desisted from his violence saw a
vision of Apollo in a dream, in consequence of which he ab-
stained from approaching his wife till after her confinement.
II. And Plato was bom, as ApoUodorus says in his
Chronicles, in the eighty-eighth Olympiad, on the seventh day
of the month Thargelion, on which day the people of Delos
say that Apollo also was bom. And he died, as Hermippus
says, at a marriage feast, in the first year of the hundred and
eighth Olympiad, having lived eighty-one years. But Ne-
anthes says that he was eighty-four years of age at his death.
He is then younger than Isocrates by six years ; for Isocrates
was bom in the archonship of Lysimachus, and Plato in that
of Aminias, in which year Pericles died.
III. And he was of the borough of Colytus, as Antileon
tells us in his second book on Dates. And he was bom, ao-
cording to some writers, in ^gina, in the house of Phidiades
I
H4 LIVES OF EMINENT FHILOBOPHEBS.
the son of Thales, as Pharorinus affirms in his Universal
History, as his father had been sent thither with several others
as a settler, and returned again to Athens when the settlers
were driven out by the Lacedaemonians, who came to the as-
sistance of the ^ginetans. And he served the office of
choregus at Athens, when Dion was at the expense of the
spectacle exhibited, as Theodorus relates in the eighth book
of his Philosophical Conservations.
I Y. And he had brothers, whose names were Adimantus and
Glaucon, and a sister called Petone, who was the mother of
Speusippus.
V. And he was taught learning in the school of Dionjsius,
whom he mentions in his Bival Lovers. And he learnt gym-
nastic exercises under the wrestler Ariston of Argos. And it
was by him that he had the name of Plato given to him in-
stead of his original name, on account of lus robust figure,
as he had previously been called Aristocles, after the name of
his grandfather, as Alexander informs us in his Successions.
But some say that he derived this name from the breadth
(flrXaruT-jjg) of his eloquence, or else because he was very wide
(<jrXaTVi) across the forehead, as Neajithes affirms There are
some also, among whom is DicsBarchus in the first volume
on Lives, who say that he wrestled at the Isthmian games.
VI. It is also said that he applied himself to the study of
painting, and that he wrote poems, dithyrambics at first, and'
afterwards lyric poems and tragedies.
VII. But he had a very weak voice, they say ; and the same
fact is stated by Timotheus the Athenian, in his book on
Lives. And it is said that Socrates in a dream saw a cygnet
on his knees, who immediately put forth feathers, and flew up
on high, uttering a sweet note, and that the next day Plato
came to him, and that he pronounced him the bird which he
had seen.
VIII. And he used to philosophize at first in the Academy,
and afterwards in the garden near Colonus, as Alexander tells
us in his Successions, quoting the testimony of Heraclitus ; and
subsequently, though he was about to contend for the prize in
tragedy in ilae theatre of Bacchus, after he had heard the dis-
course of Socrates, he learnt his poems, saying : —
Vulcan, come here ; for Flato wants your aid«
PLATO. 115
And from henceforth, as they say, being now twenty years old,
he became a pupil of Socrates. And when he was gone, he
attached himself to Cratylus, the disciple of Heraclitus, and
to Hermogenes, who had adopted the principles of Farmenides.
Afterwards, when he was eight and twenty years of »ge, as
Hermodoros tells us, he withdrew to Megara to Euclid, with
certain others of the pupils of Socrates ; and subsequently, he
went to Cyrene to Theodorus the mathematician; and from
thence he proceeded to Italy to the Pythagoreans, Philolaus
and Eurytus, and from thence he went to Euiytus to the
priests there ; and having fallen sick at that place, he was
cured by the priests by the application of sea water, in re-
ference to which he said : —
The sea doth wash away all human evila
And he said too, that, according to Homer, all the Egyptians
were physicians. Plato had also formed the idea of making
the acquaintance of the Magi ; but he abandoned it on account
of the wars in Asia.
IX. And when he returned to Athens, he settled in the
Academy, and that is a suburban place of exercise planted like
a grove, so named from an ancient hero named Hecademus, as
Eupolis tells las in his Discharged Soldiers.
In the well-shaded walks, protected well
By Godlike Aoademus.
And Timon, with reference to Plato, says :—
A man did lead them on, a strong stout man,
A honeyed speaker, sweet as melody
Of tuneful grasshopper, who, seated high
On Hecademus* tree, imwearied sings.
For the word academy was formerly spelt with E. Now our
philosopher was a friend of Isocrates ; and Praxiphanes com-
posed an account of a conversation which took place between
them, on the subject of poets, when Isocrates was staying with
Plato in the country.
X. And Aristoxenus says that he was three times engaged
in military expeditions; once against Tanagra; the second
time £^ainst Corinth, and the third time at Delium ; and that
in the battle of Delium he obtained the prize of pre-eminent
valour. He combined the principles of the schools of Hera-
I 2
116 LIVES OF EMnfENT PHILOSOPHERS.
clitus, and Pythagoras and Socrates ; for he used to philosophize
on those tlungs which are the suhjects of sensation, accord-
ing to the system of Heraclitus; on those with which intellect
is conversant, according to that of Pythagoras ; and on politics,
according to that of Socrates.
XI. And some people, (of whom Satyrus is one,) say that
he sent a commission to Sicily to Dion, to huy him three books
of Pythagoras from Philolaus for a hundred minsB ; for they
say that he was in very easy circumstances, having received
from Dionysius more than eighty talents, as Onetor also asserts
in his treatise which is entitled, Whether a wise Man ought to
acquire Gains.
XII. And he was much assisted by l^picharmus the comic
poet, a great part of whose works he transcribed, as Alcinus
says in his essays addressed to Amyntas, of which there are
four. And in the first of them he speaks as follows : — *' And
Plato appears to utter a great many of the sentiments of Epi-
charmus* Let us just examine. Plato says that that is an
object of sensation, which is never stationary either as to its
quality or its quantity, but which is always flowing and
changing ; as, for instance, if one take from any objects all
number, then one cannot affirm that they are either equal,
or of any particular things, or of what quality or quantity they
are. And these things are of such a kind that they are always
being produced, but that they never have any invariable sub-
stances."
But that is a subject for intellect from which nothing is
taken, and to which nothing is added. And this is the nature
of things eternal, which is always similar and the same. And,
indeed, Epicharmus speaks intelligibly on the subject of what
is perceived by the senses and by the intellect : —
A, But the great €k>ds were always present^ nor
Did they at any moment cease to be ;
And their pectdiar likeness at all times
Do theyrretain, by the same principles,
JB, Yet chaos is asserted to have been ^
The first existent Deity.
A, How can that be ?
For 'tis impossible that we should find
Any first principle arise from anything.
JB. Is ihere then no first principle at all ?
A. Nor second either in the things we speak of;
PLATO. 117
But thuB it is — ^if to an even number,.
Or e'en an odd one, if you bo prefer it,
Tou add a unit^ or if you deduct one,
Say will the number still remain the same ?
£. Certainly not.
A. So, if you take a measure
A cubit long, and add auother cubit>
Or cut a portion off, the measure then
No longer is the same ?
B. Of course it is not.
A. Now turn your eyes and thoughts upon mankind —
We see one grows, another perishes :
So that they all exist perpetually
In a condition of transition. That
Whose nature changes must be different
' At each successive moment^ from the thing
It was before. So also, you and I
Are different people now from what we were
But yesterday ; and then, again, to-morrow
We shall be different from what we're now ;
So that^ by the same rule, we're always different.
And Alcinus speaks as follows : — " The mse men say
that the soul perceives some things by means of the body, as
for instance, when it hears and sees ; but that it also per-
ceives something by its own power, without availing itself at
all of the assistance of the body. On which account existent
things are divisible into objects of sensation and objects of
understanding. On account of which Plato used to say, that
those who wished to become acquainted with the principles of
everything, ought first of all to divide the ideas as he calls .
them, separately, such as similarity, and unity, and multitude^
and magnitude, and stationariness, and motion. And secondly,
that they ought to form a notion of the honourable and the
good, and the just, and things of that sort, by themselves,
apart from other considerations. And thirdly, that they
ought to ascertain the character of such ideas as are relative
to one another, such as knowledge, or magnitude, or au-
thority ; considering that the things which come under our
notice from partaking of their nature, have the same names
that they have. I mean that one calls that just which
partakes of the just ; and that beautiful which partakes of
the beautiful. And each of these primary species is eternal,
and is to be understood by the intellect, and is not subject to
the influence of external circumstances. On which account
118 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
he says, that ideas exist in nature as models ; and that all
other things are like them, and, as it were, copies of them.
Accordingly Epicharmiis speaks thus ahout the good, and
about the ideas.
A. Tell me, is flute-pUying now a thing at all ?
£, Of ooone it is.
A, Ii mam tben flnte-plaTing ?
£, No, notliing of the lort
A. Well, lei ns see —
What 10 a flute-player ? what think you now
Of him — Ib he a man, or is he not ?
B, Of coiiinse he is a man.
A, Think yon not then
The case is jnst the same abont the good.
That the good ia something by itself, intrinsic,
And he who's learnt, does at once become
Himself a good man ? jnst as he who's learnt
Flute-playing is a flute-player ; or dancing,
A dancer ; wearing, a weaver. And in short, ]■
Whoever learns an art, does not become
The art itself, but just an artist in it.
Plato, in his theory of Ideas, says, " That since there is
such a thing as memory, the ideas are in existent things,
because memory is only conversant about what is stable and
enduring ; and that no other thing is durable except ideas, for in
"what way," he continues, " could animals be preserved, if they
had no ideas to guide them, and if, in addition to them, they
had not an intellect given to them by nature ?" But as it is
they recollect similitudes, and also their food, so as to know
what kind of food is fit for them ; which they learn because
the notion of similarity is implanted naturally in every
animal ; owing to which notion they recognize those of the
same species as themselves. What is it then that Epicharmus
says?
EumfiBus' wisdom ?— not a scanty gift
Appropriated to one siagle being ;
But every animal that breathes and Hves,
Has mind and intellect. — So if you wiU
Survey the facts attentively, youll find,
E'en in the common poultiy yard, the hen
Brings not her ofFsprmg forth at first alive.
But sits upon her eggs, and by her warmth,
Cherishes them into life. And all this wisdom
She does derive from nature's gifb alone.
For nature is her only guide and teacher.
PLATO. 119
And in a subsequent passage he says :—
There is no wonder in my teaching this,
That citizens please dtusens, and seem
To one another %o be beaut^ul :
For so one dog seems to another dog
The fairest object in the world ; and so
One ox seems to another, ass to ass,
And swine to swine.
And these and similar speculations are examined and com-
pared by Alcinus through four books, where he shows how
much assistance Plato has derived from Epicharmus. And
that Epicharmus himself was not indisposed to appreciate his
own wisdom, one may learn from these lines, in which he
predicts that there will arise some one to imitate him :-—
But as I thinli^ I snrely foresee this,
Thai these my words will be preserved* hereafter
In many people's recollection. And
Another man wiU come, wholl strip my reasons
Of their poetic dress, and, clothing them
In other garments and with purple broidery
Will show them off; and being invincible,
Will make all rivals bow the knee to him.
XIII. Plato also appears to have brought the books of
Sophron, the farce-writer, to . Athens, which were previously
neglected; and to have availed himself of them in his
Speculations on Morals : and a copy of them was foimd
under his head.
XIV. And Plato made three voyages to Sicily, first of
all for the purpose of seeing the island and the craters of
volcanoes, when Dionysius, the son of Hermocrates, being the
tyrant of Sicily, pressed him earnestly to come and see him ;
and he, conversing about tyranny, and saying that that is not
the best government which is advantageous for one individual
alone, unless that individual is pre-eminent in virtue, had a
quarrel with Dionysius, who got angry, and said, " Your
words are those of an old dotard." And Plato replied,
• The Greek is row fufioyp&^ov, ** A mime 'was a kind of prose
drama, intended as a famiHar representation of life and character,
without any distinct plot. It was divided into |i7/iiot dv^pcToi and
yvvaiKcloi, also into /il/xoi VKQviaiuv and yiKoUtiv" — L, ds, S. in voe,
fllflOQ.
120 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
I.
" And your language is that of a tyrant." And on this the
tyrant became very indignant, and at first was inclined to put
him to death ; but afterwards, being appeased by Deni and
Aristimenes, he forebore to do that, but gave him to Pollis,
the Lacedaemonian, who happened to have come to him on
an embassy just at that time, to sell as a slave. And he
took him to jiEgina and sold him ; and Charmander, the son
of Charmandrides, instituted a capital prosecution against
him, in accordance with the law which was in force, in the
island of jiEgina, that the first Athenian who landed on the
island should be put to death without a trial ; and he himself
was the person who had originally proposed that law, as
Pharorinus says, in his Universal History. But when some
one said, though he said it only in joke, that it was a phi-
losopher who had landed, the people released him. But some
say that he was brought into tiie assembly and watched ; and
that he did not say a word, but stood prepared to submit to
whatever might befall him ; and that tiiey determined not to
put him to death, but to sell him after the fEishion of
prisoners of war. And it happened by chance that Anniceris,
the Cyrenean, was present, who ransomed him for twenty
minsB, or, as others say, for thirty, and sent him to Athens,
to his companions, and they immediately sent Anniceris his
money : but he refused to receive it, saying that they were
not the only people in the world who were entitled to have a
regard for Plato. Some writers again say, that it was Deni
who sent the money, and that he did not refuse it, but bought
him the garden in the Academy. And with respect to Pollis
it is said that he was defeated by Chabrias, and that he was
afterwards drowned in Helia, in consequence of the anger of
the deity at his treatment of this philosopher. And this is the
story told by Pharorinus in the first book of his Commentaries.
Dionysius, however, did not remain quiet ; but when he had
heard what had happened he wrote to Plato not to speak ill of
him, and he wrote back in reply that he had not leisure
enough to think at all of Dionysius.
XV. But he went a second time to Sicily to the younger
Dionysius, and asked him for some land and for some men
whom he might make live according to his ovm theory of
a constitution. And Dionysius promised to give him some,
but never did it. And some say that he was in danger
PLATO. 12 1
himself, having been suspected of exciting Dion and Thetas
to attempt the deliverance of the island ; but that Archytas,
the Pythagorean, wrote a letter to Dionysius, and begged
Plato off. and sent him back safe to Athens. And the letter
18 as follows : —
ARCHYTAS TO DIONTSIUS, GBEETING.
•
" All of us who are the friends of Plato, have sent to you
Lamiscus and Photidas, to claim of you this philosopher in
accordance with the agreement which you made with us.
And it is right that you should recollect ^e eagerness which
you had to see him, wh»n you pressed us all to secure Plato's
visit to you, promising to provide for him, and to treat him
hospitably in every respect, and to ensure his safety both
while he remained with you, and when he departed.
Bemember this too that you were very delighted indeed at his
arrival, and that you expressed great pleasure at the time,
such as you never did on any other occasion. And if any
unpleasantness has arisen between you, you ought to behave
vriik humanity, and restore the man unhurt ; for by so doing
you will act justly, and do us a favour."
XVI. The third time that he went to Sicily was for the
purpose of reconciling Dion to Dionysius. And as he could
not succeed he returned back to his own country, having lost
his labour.
XVIT. And in his own country he did not meddle with
state affairs, although he was a politician as far as his writings
went. And the reason was, that the people were accustomed
to a form of government and constitution different from what
he approved of. And Pamphile, in the twenty-fifth book of his
Commentaries, says that the Arcadians and Thebans, when
they were founding a great city, appointed him its lawgiver;
but that he, when he had ascertained that they would not con-
sent to an equality of rights, refused to go thither.
XVIII. It is said dso, that he defended Ghabrias the
general, when he was impeached in a capital charge ; when no
one else of the citizens would undertake the task : and as he
was going up towards the Acropolis with his client, Crobylus
the sycophant met him and said, *' Are you come to plead for
another, not knowing that the hemlock of Socrates is waiting
12Q LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
fdso for you ?" But he replied, " And also, when I fought for
my country I encountered dangers ; and now too I encounter
them in the cause of justice and for the defence of a friend."
XIX. He was the first author who wrote treatises in the
form of dialogues, as Fharorinus tells us in the eighth hook of
his Universal History. And he was also the first person who
introduced the analytical method of investigation, which he
taught to Leodamus of Thasos. He was also the first person
in philosophy who spoke of antipodes, and elements, and dia-
lectics, and actions {imtifAartt), and oblong numbers, and plane
surfaces, and the providence of God. He was likewise the
first of the philosophers who contradicted the assertion of Ly-
sias, the son of Cephalus, setting it wit word for word in his
Phaedrus. And he was also the first person who examined the
subject of grammatical knowledge scientifically. And as he
argued against almost every one who had lived before his tune,
it is often asked whv he has never mentioned Democritus.
XX. Neanthes of Cyzicus says, that when he came to the
Olympic games all the Greeks who were present turned to look
at him : and that it was on that occasion that he held a con-
versation with Dion, who was on the point of attacking Diony-
sius. Moreover, in the first book of the Commentaries of
Fharorinus, it is related that Mithridates, the Persian, erected
a statue of Plato in the Academy, and put on it this inscription,
*' Mithridates, the son of Ehodobates, a Persian, consecrated
an image of Plato to the Muses, which was made by Sila-
nion."
XXI. And Heraclides says, that even while a young man,
he was so modest and well regulated, that he was never once
seen to laugh excessively.
XXII. But though he was of such a grave character him-
self, he was nevertheless ridiculed by the comic poets. Ac-
cordingly, Theopompus, in his Pleasure-seeker, says : —
For one thing is no longer only one,
But two things now are scarcely one ; as says
The solemn Hato.
And Anaxandrides in his Theseus, says : —
When he ate olives like our worUiy Hato.
And Timon speaks of him in this way, punning on his
name :—
PLATO, 1 23
As Plato placed strange platitudes on paper.*
Alexis says in his Mesopis : —
YouVe oome in time : since Fve been doubting long;
And walking up and down some time, like Flato ;
And yet have hit upon no crafty plax^
But only tix^d my legs.
And in his Analion, he says :-^
You speak of what you do not imderstand,
Bunning about like Flato : hoping thus,
To learn the nature of saltpetre and onions.
Amphis says in his Amphicrates : —
A.' But what the good is, which you hope to get
By means of her, my master, I no more
Can form a notion of, than of the good
OfPlato.
jS. Listen now.*
And in his Dexidemides he speaks thus :—
0 Plato I how your*leaming is confined
To gloomy looks, and wrinkling up your brows.
Like any cockle.
Cratinas in his Pseudripobolimaeus, says : —
You clearly are a man, endued with sense,
And so, as Plato says, I do not know;
But I suspect.
Alexis, in his Oljrmpiodorus speaks thus : — '
My mortal body became dry and withered :
But my immortal part rose to the sky.
Is not this Plato's doctrine ?
And in his Parasite he says : —
Or to converse alone, like Plato.
Anaxilas also laughs at him in his Botiylion, and Circe,
and his Eich Women.
XXIII. And Anstippus, in the fourth hook of his treatise /
upon Ancient Luxury^ says that he was much attached to a ,'
youth or the name of Aster, who used to study astronomy i
with him; and also to Dion, whom we have already men- J
* The Greek is, ^^ civcirXarre IlXcfrwv ire^rXacrfilva Baifiara ilSate.
124 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHEBS.
tioned. And some say that he was also attached to Phaedros,
and that the following epigrams which ho wrote upon them are
I evidences of the love he felt for them : —
Ify Aster, you're gazing on the stars {doripic).
Would that I were the heayens, that so I might
Ghize in return with many eyes- on thee.
Another of his epigrams is : —
Aster, you while among the living shone,
The morning star. But now that you are dead,
Tou beam like Hesperus in the shades below.
And he wrote thus on Dion : —
Once, at their birth, the fates did destine tears
To be the lot of all the Trojan women.
And Hecuba, their Queen — ^to you, 0 Dion,
As the deserved reward for glorious deeds.
They gave extensive and illustrious hopes.
And now you lie beneath your native soil ;
Honoured by all your coimtrymen, 0 Bion,
And loved by me with arden^ lasting love.
And they say that this epigram is inscribed upon his tomb
at Syracuse. They say, also, that he was in lore with Alexis*
and with Phssdrus, as I have already mentioned, and that he
wrote an epigram on them both, which runs thus : —
Now when Alexis is no longer aught,
Say only how beloved, how fair he was,
And every one does turn his eyes at once.
Why, my mind, do you show the dogs a bone ?
You're but preparing trouble for yourself :
Have we not also lost the lovely Phsedrus !
There is also a tradition that he had a mistress named Ar-
chianassa, on whom he wrote the following lines : —
I have a mistress fair from Colophon,
Archianassa, on whose very wrinkles
' ~ Sits genial love : hard must have been the fate.
Of him who met her earliest blaze of beauty.
Surely he must have been completely scorched.
He also wrote this epigram on Agathon : —
While kissing Agathon, my soul did rise.
And hovered o'er my lips ; wishing perchance,
O'er anxious that it was, to migrate to him.
PLATO. .125
Another of his epigrams is : —
I throw this apple to you. And if you
Love me who love you so, receive it gladly,
And let me taste your lovely virgin charms.
Or if that may not be, still take the fruity
And in your bosom cherish it, and leam
How fleeting is all gracefulness and beauty.
And another : —
I am an apple, and am thrown to you,*
By one who loves-you : but consent, Xanthippe ;
For you and I shall both with time decay.
They a]so attribute to him the following epigram on the
Eretnans who had heen surprised in an ambuscade : —
We were Eretrians, of Eubsean race ?
And now we lie near Susa, here entomb'd.
Far from my native land.
And this one also : —
Thus Venus to the muses spoke :
Damsels submit to Venus' yoke,
Or dread my Cupid's arms.
Those threats, the Virgins nine replied,
May weigh with Mars, but we deride
Love's wrongs, or darts, or charms.
Another is : —
A certain person found some gold.
Carried it off, and in its stead
Left a strong hatter neatly roll'd.
The owner founanis treasure fled ;
And powerless to endure his fortune's wreck,
Fitted the halter to his hapless ne<^
I c
XXIV. But Melon, who had a great dislike to Plato, sajs,
'* There is not so much to wonder at in Dionysius heing at
Corinth, as in Plato's being in Sicily. Xenophon, too, does
not appear to have been very friendlily disposed towards him :
and accordingly they have, as if in rivalry of one another, both
written books with the same title, the Banquet, the Defence of
Socrates, Moral Eeminiscences. Then, too, the one wrote the
Cyropsedia and the other a book on Politics ; and Plato in his
Laws says, that the Oyropsedia is a mere romance, for that
Cyrus was not such a person as he is described in that book.
And though they both speak so much of Socrates, neither of
126 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
them ever mentions the other, except that Xenophon once
speaks of Plato in the third book of his Reminiscences. It is
said also, that Antisthenes, being about to recite something
that he had written, invited him to be present ; and that Plato
having asked what he was going to recite, he said it was an
essay on the impropriety of coiitradicting. " How then," said
Plato, " can you write on this subject ?" and then he showed
him that he was arguing in a circle. But Antisthenes was
annoyed, and composed a dialogue against Plato, which he en-
titled Sothon ; after which they were always enemies to one
another ;- and they say that Socrates having heard Plato read
the Lysis, said, '' O Hercules ! what a number of lies the
young man has told about ma" For he had set down a great
many things as sayings of Socrates which he never said.
Plato also was a great enemy of Aristippus ; accordingly, he
speaks iU of him in his book on the Soul, and says that he was
not with Socrates when he died, though he was in -^gina, at
no great distance. He also had a great rivalry with iEschi-
nes, for that he had been held in great esteem by Dionysius,
and afterwards came to want, and was despised by Plato, but
supported by Aristippus. And Idomeneus says, that the speech
which Plato attributes to Crito in the prison, when he coun-
selled Socrates to make his escape, was really delivered by
-^schines, but that Plato attributed it to Crito because of his
dislike to the other. And Plato never makes the slightest
mention of him in any of his books, except in the treatise on
the Soul, and the Defence of Socrates.
XXV. Aristotle says, that the treatises of Plato are some-
thing between poems and prose ; and Pliarorinus sajrs, when
Plato read his treatise on the Soul, Aristotle was the only
person who sat it out, and that all the rest rose up and went
away. And some say that Philip the Opuntian copied out the
whole of his books upon Laws, which were vnritten on waxen
tablets only. Some people also attribute the Epinomis to him.
Euphorion and Pansetius have stated that the beginning of the
treatise on the Republic was often altered and re- written ; and
that very treatise, Aristoxenus afl&rms, was found almost entire
in the Contradictions of Protagoras ; and that the first book
he wrote at all was the Phsedrus ; and indeed that composition
has a good many indications of a young composer. But Dies-
archus blames the whole style of that work as vulgar.
i>LATO. 127
XXVI. A story is told, that Plato, having seen a man play-
ing at dice, reproaxshed him for it, and that he said he was playing
for a trifle ; " But the habit," rejoined Plato, " is not a trile.'*
On one occasion he was asked whether there would be any
monument of him, as of his predecessors in philosophy ? and
he answered, '* A man must first make a name, and the monu-
ment wiU follow." Once, when Xenocrates came into his house,
he desired him to scourge one of his slaves for him, for that
he himself could not do it because he was in a passion ; and
that at another time he said to one of his slaves, " I should beat
you if I were not in a passion." Having got on horsebsick he
dismounted again immediately, saying that he was afraid that
he should be infected with horse-pride. He used to advise
people who got drunk to look in the glass, and then they would
abandon their xmseemly habit ; and he said that it was never
decorous to drink to the degree of drunkenness, except at the
festivals of the God who had given men wine. He also dis-
approved of much sleeping : accordingly in his Laws he says,
" No one while sleeping is good for anything." Another say-
ing of his was, " That Qie pleasantest of all things to hear was
the truth ; but others report this saying thus, ** That the sweetest
of all things was to speak truth." And of truth he speaks
thus in his Laws, ** Truth, my friend, is a beautiful and a
durable thing ; but it is not easy to persuade men of this
feet."
XXVII. He used also to wish to leave a memorial of
himself behind, either in the hearts of his friends, or in his
books.
XXVIII. He also used to travel a good deal as some
authors inform us.
XXIX. And he died in the manner we have already
mentioned, in the thirteenth year of the reign of Philip of
Macedon, as Pharorinus mentions in the third book of his
Commentaries ; and Theopompus relates that Philip on one
occasion reproached him. But Mysonianus, in his Eesem-
blances, says that Philo mentions some proverbs that were in
circulation about Plato's lice ; implying that he had died of
that disease.
XXX. He was buried in the Academy, where he spent
the greater part of his time in the practice of philosophy,
from which his was called the Academic school ; and his
128 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
funeral was attended by all the pupils of that sect. And he
made his will in the following terms : — *' Plato left these things,
and has bequeathed them as follows : — ^The feurm in the district
of the Hephsestiades, bounded on the north by the road from
the temple of the Cephiciades, and on the soutii Vj the temple
of Hercules, which is in the district of the Hephaestiades ;
and on the east by the estate of Archestratus the Phreanian,
and on the west by the farm of Philip the Challidian, shall
be incapable of being sold or alienated, but shall belong to my
son Ademantus as far as possible. And so likewise shall my
farm in the district of the Eiresides, which I bought of CaJli-
machus, which is bounded on the north by the property of
Eurymedon the Myrrhinusian, on the south by that of
Demostratus of Xypeta, on the east by that of Eurymedon
the Myrrhinusian, and on the west by the Gephisus ; — I also
leave him three minsB of silver, a silver goblet weighing a
handred and sixty-five drachms, a cup weighing forty-five
drachms, a golden ring, and a golden ear-ring, weighing
together four drachms and three obols. Euclides the stone-
cutter owes me three minae. I leave Diana her liberty. My
slaves Sychon, Bictas, Apolloniades, and Dionysius, I bequeath
to my son ; and I also give him all my furniture, of which
Demetrius has a catalogue. I owe no one anything. My
executors shall be Tozthenes, Speusippus, Demetrius, Hegias,
Eurymedon, GallimachuSy and Thrasippus." This was his
will. And on his tomb the following epigrams were inscribed.
First of all : —
Here, first of all men for pure justice famed,
And moral virtue, Aristocles lies ;
And if there e'er has lived one truly wise.
This man was wiser still ; too great for envy.
A second is : —
Here in her bosom does the tender earth '
Embrace great Plato's corpse. — Bis soul aloft
Has ta'en its place among the immortal Qods.
Ariston's glorious son — whom all good men,
Though in far countries, held in love and honour,
Remembering his pure and god-like life.
There is another which is more modem :—
PtATO. 129
A, Eagle, why fly you o'er this holy tomb ?
Or are you on your way, with lofty wing.
To some bright starry domicile of the Gods f
JB. lam. the image of the soul of Plato,
And to OlympuR now am borne on high ;
His body Ues in his own native Attica.
We ourselves also have written one epigram on him, which
is as follows : —
I
If faVring Phoebus had not Plato given
To Grecian lands, how would the learned Gk>d
Have e'er instructed mortal minds in learning ?
But he did send him, that as .^culapius
I His son 's the best physician of the body.
So Plato should be of the immortal souL
And others, alluding to his death :-*
Phoebus, to bless mankind, became the father
Of uEsculapius, and of god-like Plato ;
That one to heal the body, this the mind.
Now, from a marriage feast he's gone to heaven.
To realize the happy city there.
Which he has plumed fit for the realms of Jove.
These then are the epigrams on him.
XXXI. His disciples were, Speusippus the Athenian,
Zenocrates of Chalcedon, Aristotle the Stagirite, Philip of
Opus, Histiaeus of Perinthus, Dion of Syracuse, Amyclus of
Heraclea, Erastus and Coriscus of Sceptos, Timolaus of
Gyzicus, Eudcm of Lampsacus, Pithon and Heraclides of
JEmus, Hippothales and Callippus, Athenians, Demetrius of
Amphipolis, Heraclides of Pontus, and numbers of others,
among whom there were also two women, Lasthenea of
Mantinea, and Axiothea of Phlius, who used even to wear
man's clothes, as we are told by Dicaearchus. Some say that
Theophrastus also was a pupil of his ; and ChamsBlion says
that Hyperides the orator, and Lycurgus, were so likewise.
Polemo also asserts that Demosthenes was. Sabinus adds
Mnesistratus of Thasos to the number, quoting authority for
the statement in the fourth book of his Meditative Matter ;
and it is not improbable.
XXXII. But as you, 0 lady, are rightly very much attached
to Plato, and as you are very fond of hunting out in every
quarter all the doctrines of the philosopher widi great eager-
130 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHEBS.
ness, I have thought it necessary to subjoin an account of the
general character of his lectures, and of the arrangement of
his dialogues, and of the method of his inductive argument ;
going back to their elements and first principles as far as I
could, so that the collection of anecdotes concerning his life
which I have been able to make, may not be curtailed by the
omission of any statement as to his doctrines. For it would
be like sending owls to Athens, as the proverb is, if I were to
descend to particular details.
They say now, that Zeno, the Eleatic, was the first person
who composed essays in the form of dialogue. But Aristotle,
in the first book of his treatise on Poets, says that Alexander,
a native of Styra, or Teos, did so before him, as Phavorinus
also says in his Commentaries. But it seems to me that Plato
gave tiiis kind of writing the last polish, and that he has
therefore, a just right to the first honour, not only as the
improver, but also as inventor of that kind of writing, Now,
the dialogue is a discourse carried on by way of question and
answer, on some one of the subjects with which philosophy is
conversant, or with which statesmanship is concerned, with a
becoming attention to the characters of the persons who are
introduced as speakers, and with a careful selection of language
governed by the same consideration. And dialectics is the
art of conversing, by means of which we either overturn 61:
establish the proposition contended for, by means of the ques-
tions and answers which are put in the mouths of the parties
conversing. Now, of the Platonic discourse there are two
characteristics discernible on the very surface ; one fitted for
guiding, the other for investigating.
The first of these has two subordinate species, one specula-
tive, the other practical ; and of these two again, the speculative
is divided into the natural and the logical, and the practical
into the ethical and the political. Again, the kind fitted
for investigating has also two primary divisions with their
separate characteristics, one object of which is simply practice,
the other being also disputatious : and the first of these two is
again subdivided into two ; one of which may be compared to
the art of the midwife, and the other is at it were tentative ;
the disputatious one is also divided into the demonstrative and
the distinctive.
But we are not unaware that some writers distinguish the
PLATO. 131
various dialogues in a different manner from what we do. For
they say that some of them are dramatic, and others narrative,
and othei^s of a mixed nature. But they, in this division, are
classifying the dialogues in a theatrical rather than in a philo-
sophical manner. Some of the dialogues also refer to subjects
of natural philosophy, such as the Timaeus. Of the logical
class, there are the Politics, the Cratylus, the Parmenides, and
the Sophist. Of the ethical kind there is the defence of
Socrates, the Crito, the Phsedo, the Phaadrus, the Banquet,
the Menexenus, the Clitiphon, the Epistles, the Philebus, the
Hipparchus, and the Rival Lovers. Of the political class there
is the Republic, the Laws, the Minos, the Epinomis, and the
Atlanticus. Of the midwife description we have the two
Alcibiades's, the Theages, the Lysis, the Laches. Of the
tentative kind, there is the Euthyphro, the Meno. the Ion,
the Charmides, and the Thesetetus. Of the demonstrative
description, we have the Protagoras, and of the distinctive
class file Euthydemus, the two Hippias's, and the Gorgias.
And this is enough to say about the dialogues as to what they
are, and what their different kinds are.
XXXIII. But since there is also a great division of opinion
respecting them, from some people asserting that in them
Plato dogmatizes in a positive manner, while others deny this,
we had better also touch upon this part of the question.
Now, dogmatizing is laying down dogmas, just as legislating
is making laws. But the word dogma is used in two senses ;
to mean both that which we think, and opinion itself. Now
of these, that which we think is the proposition, and opinion
is the conception by which we entertain it in our minds. Plato
then explains the opinions which he entertains himself, and
refutes false ones ; and about doubtM matters he suspends
his judgment. His opinions of matters as they appear to him
he puts into the mouth of four persons, Socrates, Timseus, an
Athenian poet, and an Eleatic stranger. But the strangei^
are not, as some people have supposed, Plato and Parmenides,
but certain nameless imaginary characters. Since Plato asserts
as undeniable axioms all the opinions which he puts into the
mouth of Socrates or Timeeus. But when he is refuting faJse
propositions, he introduces such characters as Thrasymachus,
and Gallicles, and Polus, and Gorgias^ and Protagoras, Hippi-
astro, and Euthydemus, and men of that stamp. But when
K 2
13d LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
he is demonstrating anything, then he chiefly uses the induc-
tive form of argument, and that too not of one kind oidy, but
of two. For induction is an argument, which by means of
some admitted truths establishes naturally other truths which
resemble them. But there are two kinds of induction ; the
one proceeding from contraries, the other from consequents.
Now, the one which proceeds from contraries, is one in which
from the answer given, whatever that answer may be, the con-
trary of the principle indicated in the question must follow.
As for instance. My father is either a different person from
your father, or he is the same person. If now your father is
a different person from my father, then as he is a different
person from a father, he cannot be a father. If, on the other
hand« he is the same person as my father, then, since he is
the same person as my father, he must be my father. And
again, if man be not an animal, he must be either a stone or
a piece of wood ; but he is not a stone or a piece of wood, for
he is a living animal, and capable of independent motion.
Therefore, he is an animal. But, if he is an animal, and a
dog or an ox is likewise an animal, then man must be an
animal, and a dog, and an ox. — This then is the method of
induction in contradiction and contention, which Plato was
accustomed to employ, not for the purpose of establishing
principles of his own, but with the object of refuting the
arguments of others.
Now, the inductive kind of argument drawn from conse-
quents is of a twofold character. The one proving a particular
opinion by an admitted fact of an equally particular nature ;
or else going from particulars to generals. And the first of
these two divisions is the oratorical one, the second the
dialectic one. As for instance, in the former kind the ques-
tion is whether this person has committed a murder; the
proof is that he was found at the time covered with blood.
But this is the oratorical method of employing the induction ;
since oratory is conversant about particulars, and does not
concern itself about generals. For its object is not to ascer-
tain abstract justice, but only particular justice. The other
is the dialectic ^kind, the general proposition having been
established by particular ones. As for instance, the question
is whether the soul is immortal, and whether the living con-
sist of those who have once been dead ; and this proposition
PLATO. 133
Plato establishes in his book on the Soul, by a certain general
proposition, that contraries arise out of contraries ; and this
identical general proposition is established by certain particular
cues. As, for instance, that sleep follows on waking, and
waking from sleeping, and the greater from the less, and
reversely the less from the greater. And this kind of
induction he used to employ for the establishment of his own
opinions.
XXXIV. Anciently, in tragedy, it was only the chorus
who did the whole work of the play; but subsequently,
Thespis introduced one actor for the sake of giving the chorus
some rest, and ^schylus added a second, and Sophocles a
third, and so they made tragedy complete. So in tiie same
manner, philosophical discourse was originally uniform, con-
cerning itself solely about natural philosophy ; then Socrates
added to it a second character, the ethical : and Plato a third,
the dialectic : and so he brought philosophy to perfection.
XXXV. But Thrasybulus says that he published his dia-
logues as the dramatic poets published their tetralogies. For,
they contended with four plays, (and at four festivals, the
Dionysiac, the Lensean, the Panathensean, and the Chytri),
one of which was a satiric drama, and the whole four plays
were called a tetralogy. Now, people say, the whole of his
genuine dialogues amount to fifty-six; the treatise on the
Republic being divided into ten books, (which Phavorinus, in
the second book of his Universal History, says may be found
almost entire in the Contradictious of Protagoras), and that
on Laws into twelve. And there are nine tetralogies, if we
consider the Republic as occupying the place of one book, and
the Laws of another. He arranges, therefore, the first tetra-
logy of these dialogues which have a common subject, wishing
to show what sort of life that of the philosopher may have
been. And he uses two titles for each separate book, taking
one from the name of the principal speaker, and the other
from the subject.
This tetralogy then, which is the first, is commenced by
the Euthyphron, or what is Holy ; and that dialogue is a
tentative one. The second is the Defence of Socrates, a moral
one. The third is the Criton, or What is to be done, a moral
one. The fourth is the PhsBdo, or the Dialogue on the Soul,
a moral one.
184 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
The second tetralogy is that of which the first piece is the
Oratylas, or the correctness of names, a logical one. The
Meeetetus, or Knowledge, a tentative one. The Sophist, or a
dialogue on the Existent, a logical one. The Statesman, or
a dialogue of Monarchy, a logicid one.
The first dialogue in the third tetralogy is the Parmenides,
or a dialogue of Ideas, a logical one. The second is the
Philelus, or on Pleasure, a moral one. The Banquet, or on
the Good, a moral one. The PhsBdros, or on Love, a moral
one. *
The fourth tetralogy opens with the Alcihiades, or a
treatise on the Nature of Man, a midwife-like work. The
second Alcihiades, or on Prayer, a piece of the same charac-
ter. The Hipparchus, or on the Love of Gain, a moral one.
The Kival Lovers, or a treatise on Philosophy, a moral one.
The first dialogue in the fifth is the Theages, or another
treatise on Philosophy, another midwife-like. work. The
C|iarmides, or on Temperance, a tentative essay. The
Laches, or on Manly Courage, midwife-like. The Lysis, or a
dissertation on Friendship, also midwife-like.
The sixth tetralogy commences with the Euthydemus, or
the Disputatious Man, a distinctive dialogue. Then comes the
Protagoras, or the Sophists, a demonstrative one. The Gorgias,
or a dissertation on Khetoric, another distinctive one. And
the Meno, or on Virtue, a tentative dialogue.
The seventh begins with the two Hippias's. The first being
a dissertation on the Beautiful, the second one on Falsehood,
both distinctive. The third is the Ion, or a dissertation on
the Iliad, a tentative one. The fourth is the Menexenus, or
the Funeral Oration, a moral one.
The first dialogue in the eighth is the Olitophon, or the
Exhortation, a moral piece. Then comes the Republic, or the
treatise on Justice, a political one. The Timseus, or a dis-
sertation on Nature, a dialogue on Natural Philosophy. And
the Critias, or Atlanticus, a moral one
The ninth begins with the Minos, or a treatise on Law, a
political work. The Laws, or a dissertation on Legislation,
another political work. The Epinomis, or the Nocturnal
Conversation, or the Philosopher, a third political one.
XXXVI. And this last tetralogy is completed by thirteen
epistles, all moral ; to which is prefixed as a motto, sZ iF^dmtVy
PLATO. 136
jast as Epicurus inscribed on bis su dtdynv, and Oleon on bis
X'B^'if'*' Tbey are, one letter to Aristodemns, two to Arobytas,
four to Dionysius, one to Hermeias, Erastus, and Goriscus,
one to Leodamas, one to Dion, one to Perdiccas, and two to
the friends of Dion.
XXXVII. And this is the way in which some people
divide his works. But others, among whom is Aristophanes,
the grammarian, arrange his dialogues in trilogies ; and they
make the first to consist of the Kepublic, the Timseus and the
Critias.
The second of the Sophist, the Statesman, the Cratylus.
The third of the Laws, the Minos, the Epinomis.
The fourth of the ThesBtetus, the Euthypbro, the Defence
of Socrates.
The fifth of the Crito, the Phsedo, the Epistles.
And the rest they arrange singly and independently, without
any regular order. And some authors, as has been said
already, place the Republic at the head of his works : others
begin with the Greater Alcibiades : others with the Theages ;
some with the Euthypbro, others with the Clitophon ; some
with the TimsBus, some with the Phaedrus, others again with
the Thesetetus. Many make the Defence of Socrates the first
piece.
There are some dialogues attributed to him which are
confessedly spurious. The Midon, or the Horse-breeder ; the
Eryxias, or Erasistratus ; the Alcyon ; the Acephali, or
Sisyphi ; the Axiochus ; the Phaeacians ; the Demodorus ;
The Chilidon ; the Seventh ; the Epimenides. Of which the
Alcyon is believed to be the work of a man named Leon ; as
Phavorinus tells us in the seventh book of his Commentaries.
XXXVIII. But he employs a great variety of terms in
order to render his philosophical system imintelligible to the
ignorant. In his phraseology he considers wisdom as the
knowledge of things which can be understood by the intellect,
and which have a real existence : which has the Gods for its
object, and the soul as unconnected with the body. He also,
with a peculiarity of expression, calls wisdom also philosophy,
which he explains as a desire for divine wisdom. But wisdom
and experience are also used by him in their common accepta-
tion ; as, for instance, when he calls an artisan wise {(fo^hg).
He also uses the same words in different senses at different
136 LIVES OF EMINBNT PHILOSOPHEBS.
times. Accordingly he uses ^aDXog in the sense of a^Xou^
simple^ in which meaning also the word occurs in Euripides,
in the Licjraonius, where the poet speaks of Hercules in the
following terms ; —
Mean looking (^avXoc), rude, -virtuous in great affiurs.
Measuring aU wisdom by its last results,
A hero unrefined in speech.
But Plato uses the word sometimes even for what is
heautiful; and sometimes for small and insignificant; and
very often he uses different words to express the same idea.
Accordingly, besides the word idea for a class, he uses also
tTdog, and ysvog, and '^ra^ddstyfia, and a^ii, anda/r/ov. Sometimes
he uses opposite expressions for the same thing ; accordingly,
he says that it is an object of sensation that exists, while at
other times he says it is that which does not exist ; speaking
of it as existing hecause of its origin, and as non-existent with
reference to its continual changes. Then again, he defines
his Idea as something which is neither moving nor stationary,
at one time calling ^e same thing, at another time one thing,
at a third time many things, And he is in the habit of doing
this in many instances.
And the explanation of his arguments is three-fold. For
first of all, it is necessaiy to explain what each thing that is
said is ; secondly, on what account it is said, whether because
of its bearing on the principal point, or figuratively, and
whether it is said for the purpose of establishing an opinion of
his own, or of refuting the arguments brought forward by the
other party to the conversation ; and thirdly, whether it has
been said truly.
XXXIX. But since there are some particular marks put in
his books, we must also say something about them, x
indicates- peculiar expressions and figures of speech, and
generally any peculiarities* of Plato's style. When doubled it
points to the doctrines and peculiar opinions of Plato ; ^'
when dotted all round, points to some select bits of beautiful
writing. When doubled and dotted it indicates corrections of
some passages. A dotted obelus indicates hasty disapprovals.
An inverted sigma dotted all round points out passages which
may be taken in a double sense, and transpositions of words.
PLATO. 137
The Ceraunium* indicates a connection of philosophical ideas.
An asterisk points out an agreement in doctrine. And an
obelus marks the rejection of the expression or of the passage.
These then are the marginal marks which occur, and the
writings of which Plato was the author : — ^which, as Antigonus
the Caiystian says, . in his treatise on Zeno, when they had
been but lately published, brought in some gain to the posses-
sors, if any one else was desirous of reading them.
XL. These now were his chief opinions. He affirmed that
the soul was immortal and clothed in many bodies successively,
and that its first principle was number, and that the first
principle of the body was geometry. And he defined it as an
abstract idea of spirit diffused in every direction. He said
also, that it was self-moving and threefold. For that that
part of it which was capable of reasoning was situated in the
head, that that portion which was affected by passion was
seated around the heart, and that which was appetitive was
placed around the navel and the liver. And that it is placed
in the middle of the body, and embraces it at the same time
in all its parts, and that it consists of elements ; and that
when it is divided according to harmonic intervals it forms
two connected circles ; of which the inner circle is divided
into six portions, and makes in all seven circles ; and that
this is placed on the left hand of the diameter, and situated
in the interior. But the other is on the right hand of the
same line ; on which account, and because it is one only, it is
the superior of the two. For the other is divided internally ;
and this too, is the circle of that which is always the same ;
the other, the circle of that which is changeable and different.
And the one he says is the motion of the soul, but the other
is the motion of the universe and of the planets.
On the other side, the division of the circles from the centre
to the extremities, being harmoniously appropriated to the
essence of the soul, the one knows existing things and esta-
blishes harmony between them, because it is itself composed
of harmonious elements. The circle of what is changeable,
engenders opinion by its regular movements ; but the circle
of that which is always^ the same produces knowledge.
XLI. Plato lays down two primary causes or principles
of all things, God and matter, which he also calls mind,
. * This figure was like a barbed arrow, according to Zevort
138 LIVES OP BltflNBNT PHILOSOPHERS.
and the cause. And he defines matter as something without
shape and without limitation, and says that from it all concre-
tions arise. He affirms also that as it was moving ahout at
random, it was brought by God into one settled place, as God
thought order better than disorder ; and that this nature is
divided into four elements, fire, water, air, and earth, of which
the world itself and everything in it was made. But he says
that the earth is the only thing that is unchangeable, as he
considers the cause to be the difference of the figures of which
it is composed ; for he says that the figures of the others are
homogeneous ; for that they are all composed equally of scalene
triangles. The figure of the earth, however, is peculiar to
itself; for the element of fire is a pyramid ; of air, an octagon ;
of water, an'eicosagou ; and of the earth, a cube ; owing to which
these things cannot be changed into earth, nor earth into them.
He teaches also that these elements are not separated so as to
occupy each a peculiar and distinct place ; for the spherical
motion collects and compresses all the small things towards the
centre, and the small things separate the great ones, on which ac-
count the species, as they change, do also change their positions.
Moreover he asserts that the world is one, and has been pro-
duced, since it has been made by God, in such a manner as to
be a;n object of sensation. And he considers it endowed with
life, because that which is so endowed, is superior to that which
is not, and it must be the production of the most excellent pro-
ducer. It is also one, and illimitable; because the model
after which it was made was one ; and it is spherical, because
its creator was of that form ; for it also contains all other
animals, and God who made it comprises all forms. And it
IS smooth, and has no iostruments whatever all round it,
because it has no need of any. But the whole world [remains
imperishable, because it cannot be resolved into God ; and God
is the cause of universal production, because it is the nature of
the good to be productive of good ; and the best is the cause of
the production of the heaven ; for the best of all productions
can have no other cause than the best of all intelligible
existences. And since God is of that character, and since
heaven resembles the best, inasmuch as it is at least the most
beautiful of all things, it cannot be like anything else that is
produced, except God.
He also teaches that the world consists of fire, water, air,
PLATO. 139
and earth ; of fire, in order that it may he visihle ; #f earth, in
order that it may he firm ; of water and air, that it may not he
destitute of proportion ; for two middle terms are indispensahle
to keep the solid hodies in dae proportion to one another, and
to realize the unity of the whole. In short, the world is formed
of all the elements together, in order that it may he perfect
and imperishable.
Again, time is the image of eternity ; eternity subsists for
ever ; but the motion of the heaven is time ; for day, and
night, and the months, and all such divisions, are parts of time,
on which account there could be no such thing as time apart
from the nature of the world ; for time existed contempo-
raneously and^simultaneously wilii the world. And it was with
reference to time that the sun, and the moon, and the planets
were made ; and it was in order that the number of the seasons
might be manifest, and that the animals might partake of num-
ber, that God kindled the light of the sun ; and that the moon
was above the circle of the earth, and that the sun was next to
it, and in the still higher circles were the planets. And that
the universe was animated, because it was altogether bound up
in animated motion, and that the race of all oUier animals was
produced in order that the world might be made perfect, and re-
sembling an animal such as could be comprehended by intellect.
Since then God had life, the heaven also must have life ; and the
Gods are to a great extent composed of fire. And there are
three other races of animals, those which fly in the air ; those
which lives in the water ; those which walk in the earth. The
oldest of all the deities in heaven is the Earth ; she was formed in
order to be the dispenser of night and day ; and as she is placed
in the centre, she is constantly in motion around the centre.
And since there are two efficient causes, some things must,
he says, be affirmed to exist in consequence of intellect, and
some from some necessary cause. Now necessary causes are
the air, fire, earth, and water, these not being real elements,
but rather receptacles ; and they too are formed of triangles
in combination, and are resolvable into triangles ; and their
elements are the scalene triangle and the isosceles. These two
before mentioned elements are the principles and causes of
things, of which the models are God and matter, which last
must necessarily be destitute of form, as is the case of other
receptacles. And that the cause of these things was a necessary
140 LIVES OP EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
cause, whiqji, receiving the ideas, produced the 8ubstances,'and
was moved by the dissimilarity of its own power, and again by
Its motion compelled those things which were moved by it to
move other things in their turn.
But all these things were formerly moved without any reason
or order ; but after they began to form the world by their com-
bmation, they then received symmetry and regiUarity from God,
according to the principles applicable to them; for the efficient
causes, even before the creation of the heaven, were two in
number. There was also a third, namely production ; but
these were not very evident, but rather traces than actual
things, and quite devoid of regularity. But after the world
was made, then they too assumed a regular form and arrange-
ment ; but the heaven was made of all existing bodies. And
i^lato considers that God is incorporeal just as the soul is, and
that It is owing to that that he is not affected by any destruction
or external circumstances. And ideas, as we have said before,
he defines as certain causes and principles, owing to which it
^^ Y r^T^^^ *°^ ^^^^ *^°^® ^® ^y nature what they are.
XLII. On the subject of good and evil, these were his sen-
timents : that the end was to become like God ; and that
virtue was sufficient of herself for happiness, but nevertheless
requured the advantages of the body as instruments to work
^th ; such as health, strength, the integrity of the senses, and
things of that kind ; and also external advantages, such as
nches, and noble birth, and glory. Still that the wise man
would be not the less happy, even if destitute of these auxiliary
circumstances; for he would enjoy the constitution of his
country, and would marry, and would not transgress the es-
tablished laws, and that he would legislate for his country, as
well as he could under existing circumstances, unless he saw
affairs in an unmanageable condition, in consequence of the
excessive factiousness of the people. He thinks too that the
Gods superintend all the afifairs of men, and that there are such
beings as daemons. And he was the first person who defined the
notion of the honourable, as that which borders on the praise-
worthy, and the logical,,and the useful, and the becoming, and
the expedient, all which things are combined with that which
IS suitable to, and in accordance with, nature.
XLIII. He also discussed in his dialogues the correctness of
terms, so that he was the first person who reduced the science
PLATO. 141
of giving correct answers, and putting correct questions to a
system, which he himself used to satiety.
XLI V. In his dialogues he used to speak of justice as a kind
of law of God, as heing of influence sufficient to excite men to
act justly, in order to avoid su£Pering punishment as malefac-
tors after death. Owing to which he appeared to some people
rather fond of mythical stories, as he mingled stories of this
kind with his writings, in order hy the uncertainty of all the
circumstances that affect men after their death, to induce them
to abstain from evil actions. And these were his opinions.
XLV. He used too, says Aristotle, to divide things in this
manner : — Of good, some have their place in the mind, some
in the body, and some are wholly external. As, for instance,
justice, and prudence, and manly courage, and temperance,
and qualities of that sort exist in the soul. Beauty, and a
good constitution, and health, and strength exist in the body.
But friends, and the prosperity of one's country, and wealth,
are external goods. There are then three species of goods,
some in the soul, some in the body, and some external
to either.
XL VI. There are also three species of friendship. For one
kind is natural, another that which arises from companionship ;
and the third is that which is produced by ties of hospitality.
We call that natural friendship which parents feel towards
their offspring, and relations towards one another; and this
is partaken of by other animals besides men. We call that
the friendship of companionship which arises from a habit of
association, and which has no reference to ties of blood, such
as the friendship of Pylades for Orestes. That which arises
from ties of hospitality is one which owes its origin to agree
ments, and which is carried on by means of letters between
strangers. There is, therefore, natural friendship, and friend-
ship between companions, and between strangers. Some
also add a fourth kind, namely, the friendship of love.
XLVII. Of political constitutions there are five species.
There is one kind which is democratical, a second which is
aristocratical, a third is oligarchical, a fourth monarchical, and
the fifth is tyrannical. Now, the democratical form of con-
stitution exists in those cities in which the multitude has the
chief power, and elects magistrates, and passes laws at its own
pleasure. But an aristocracy is that form- in which neither
142 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHEBS.
the rich; nor the poor, nor the most illustrious men of the city
rule, but the most nobly bom have the chief sway. And
oligarchy is that constitution in which the magistracies are
distributed according to some sort of rating : for the rich are
fewer in number than the poor. The monarchical constitution
is either dependent on law or on fieimily. That in Carthage
depends on law; that in Lacsedemon and Macedonia ou
family ; for they select their sovereign out of some particular
family. But a tyranny is that kind of government in which
the people are either cajoled or constrained into being governed
by a single individual. Forms of government then, are
divided into democracy, aristocracy, oligarchy, monarchy, and
tyranny.
XL VIII. Again, of justice there are three species. For
there is one kind which is conversant with the gods ; a second
which has reference to men ; and a third, which concerns the
dead. For they who sacrifice according to the laws, and who
pay due respect to the temples, are manifestly pious to the
gods. And those who repay what has been lent to them, and
restore Vflasit has been deposited mth them, act justly as to
men. And those who pay due respect to the tombs, clearly
are pious towards the dead. There is, therefore, one justice
towards the Gods, a second towards men, and a third towards
the dead.
XLIX. In the same way, there are also three species of
knowledge. There is one kind which is practical, a second
which is productive, a third which is theoretical. For the
science of building houses or ships, is production, , For one
can see the work which is produced by it. Political science,
and the science of playing the flute, or the harp, or such
things as that, is practical; for one cannot see any visible re-
sult which has been produced by them, and yet they are doing
something. For one man plays the flute or plays the harp,
and another occupies himself with state affairs. Again, geo-
metrical, and harmonic, and astronomical science are all
theoretical, for they do nothing, and produce nothing. But
the geometrician theorizes as to what relation lines bear to
one another ; and the harmonist speculates about sounds, and
the astronomer about stars and about the world. Accordingly,
of sciences some are theoretical, others productive, and a third
species is practical.
PLATO. 143
L. Of medical science there are five species : one, pharma-
ceutical ; a second, manual; a third, conversant about the
regulation of the manner of life, and the diet ; a fourth, the
business of which is to detect diseases ; and the fifth is re-
medial. The pharmaceutical relieves infirmities by means of
medicines ; the manual heals men by cutting and cauterizing ;
the one which attends to the diet, gets rid of diseases by
altering and regulatiug the diet; the fourth produces its effects
by a thorough comprehension of the nature of the disease; and
the last relieves men from suffering by bringing prompt as-
sistance at the moment. Medical science, then, is divided
into the pharmaceutical, the manual, the dietetic, the diagnos-
tic, and the remedial.
LI. Of law there are two divisions. For there is a written
and an unwritten law. The one by which we regulate our
constitutions in our cities, is the written law ; that which
arises firom custom, is the unwritten law. As, for instance,
for a man to come naked into the market place, or to wear
woman's clothes, are actions which are not prohibited by any
law, and yet we never do them because they are forbidden by
the unwritten law. Law, therefore, is divided into the .written
and the unwritten law.
LII. Discourse is divided into five heads; one of which
heads is that which statesmen employ when they speak in the
public assemblies; and this is called political. Another
division is that which orators use in their written harangues,
and bring forward for the sake of display in panegyrics or
reproaches, or impeachments. And such a description of
discourse as this is the rhetorical. A third class is that which
private individuals use when conversing with one another.
This is called private discourse. Another kind is that which
is employed when men converse by means of putting short
questions and giving brief answers to those who question
&em. This is called the dialectic kind of discourse. The
fifth division is that which artists adopt when conversing on
their own particular art, and this is called professional dis-
course. Thus discourse, then, is divided into political,
rhetorical, private, dialectic, and professional.
LIII. Music again is divided into three species. For
there is the music of the mouth alone, such as song ; se-
condly, there is the music which is performed by the hands and
144 LIVES OP EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
mouth together, such as singing to the harp ; thirdly, there
is that which is executed by the hands alone, such as harp
playing. Music, therefore, is divided into music of the
mouth, music of the mouth and hands, and music of the
hands.
LIV. Nobleness of birth is divided into four species ; the
first is when one's ancestors are noble, and valiant, and just ;
in which case they say that their posterity are nobly bom.
The second kind is when one's ancestors have been princes
and rulers of nations, and their posterity also we call noble.
Another kind is when one's ancestors have been distinguished
for personal renown, such, for instance, as is gained by
generalship or by victory at the games. For their oflFspring
also we address as nobly bom. And the last kind is when
a man is himself noble in his spirit, and magnanimous. For
that man also we call noble, and this is the last kind of
nobihty. There is, therefore, nobility arising from virtuous
ancestors, from royal ancestors, from illustrious ancestors, and
from one's own excellent qualities.
LV. Beauty also is divided into three kinds. For there is
one kind which is praisewortliy, as that of a beautiM face.
Another which is useful, as an instmment or a house, and
things of that kind which are beautiful, with reference to our
use of them. There is also a beauty with reference to laws,
and habits, and things of that kind, which is likewise beautiful,
because of its utility. So that beauty again is looked at in
three ways, with reference to its praise, its utility, and to our
use of it.
LVI. The soul is divided into three parts ; for one part of
it is capable of reason, another is influenced by appetite, the
third part is liable to passion. Of these the reasoning part
is the cause of deliberating, and reasoning, and imderstanding,
and everything of that kind. The appetite part is that portion
of the soul wMch is the cause of desiring to eat, and to em-
brace, and things of that kind. The passionate part is the
cause of men feeling confldence and delight, and grief and
anger. The soul therefore is divided into the reasoning part,
the appetitive part, and the passionate part.
LVII. Of perfect virtue there are four species. One is
prudence, one is justice, the third is manly gallantry, and the
fourth is temperance. Of these, pmdence is the cause of a
PLATO. 145
man acting rightly in affiurs; justice is the cause of his
acting justly in partnerships and bargains ; manly gallantry is
the cause of a man's not being alarmed amid dangers and for-
midable circumstances, but standing firm ; and temperance is
the cause of his subduing his appetites, and being enslaved by
no pleasure, but living decorously. So that virtue is divided
into prudence, justice, manly gallantry, and temperance.
LVIII. Rule is divided into five parts. One is rule ac-
cording to law ; another is rule according to nature ; a third
kind is rule according to custom; a fourth division is rule
with reference to family; the fifth is rule by force. Now
when the rulers in cities are elected by the citizens, then they
rule according to law ; those who rule according to nature are
the males, not only among men, but also among all other
animals ; for everywhere we shcdl find it as a general rule that
the male rules the female; the rule of him who rules according
to custom is such as this, when schoolmasters rule their pupils,
and teachers their disciples. Eule according to family is that
which prevails in places like Lacedsemon, where hereditary
sovereigns reign. For the kingdom there belongs to a certain
family ; and in Macedonia they rule on the same principle.
For there, too, the kingdom depends, on family. But those
who rule by force, only cajoling the citizens, rule in spite of
them ; and such a sway is called rule by force. So that there
is rule by law, and by nature, and by custom, and by family,
and by force.
LIX. Of rhetoric he speaks of six species. For whqn
orators exhort the people to make war upon or to form alliances
against any one, this species of oratory is called exhortation.
When they persuade the people not to make war, or to form
alliances, but to keep quiet, this kind of rhetoric is called
dissuasion. The third species of rhetoric, is when any one
says that he has been injured by some one else, and impeaches
that person as guilty of many crimes ; for this species is
called accusation. The fourtii kind of rhetoric is called
defence, when a man shows that he has done no wrong, and
that he is not guilty of anything out of the way. Such a kind of
speech they caU a defence. The fifth species of rhetoric, is
when any one speaks well of another, and shows him to be
virtuous and honourable ; and this kind is called encomium.
The sixth species, is when any one shows that another person
L
146 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
is worthless ; and this kind is called blame. So that rhetoric
is divided into encomium and blame, exhortation and dis-
suasion, accusation and defence.
Speaking correctly is divided under four- heads. One, the
saying v^hat is right ; one, the saying as much as is right ;
thirdly, the saying it to the proper people ; and fourthly, the
saying it at the proper time. Now as to the saying what is
right, that is the saying what will be advantageous both to the
speaker and to the hearer. The saying as much as is right,
is saying neither more nor less than what is sufficient. The
saying it to the proper people, is supposing one is speaking to
one's elders who are mistaken in any point, the using expres-
sions proper to be addressed to those older than one's self; or,
on the other hand, if one is addressing those younger, then the
using language such as is suitable to young people. The
saying it at the proper time, is speaking neither too soon nor
too late ; for if one does, one will err and speak improperly.
LX. Beneficence is divided under four heads. For it may
be exerted either in money, or by personal exertion, or by
knowledge, or by words. In money when any one assists
those who are in want, so as to put them at ease with respect
to money. And men benefit one another by personal ex-
ertion when they come upon those who are being beaten and
assist them. Again, those who instruct, or heal, or who teach
any good thing, benefit others by their knowledge ; and when
one person comes down to the court of justice as an advocate
for another, and delivers some speech full of sense and good
feeling in his behalf, that man assists his friend by words.
So that there is one beneficence which is displayed in money,
another in personal exertion, a third by means of knowledge,
and the fourth kind by words.
LXI. Again, Plato divides the end of all affairs into four
species. An affair has one end in accordance with law, when
a decree is passed, and when the law establishes it ; it has
an end in accordance with nature, when it is such a thing as a
day, or a year, or the seasons. It has an end according to art,
when it is architecture for instance, for a man builds a house ;
or when it is ship-buUding, for it makes a ship. And affEors
also come to an end by chance, when they turn out differently
from what any one expected. So that an end of an afiGur is
regulated either by law, or by nature, or by art, or by chance.
PLATO. 147
LXII. Power again is divided into four species. There is
one power which we possess by our ability to reason and form
conceptions by means of our intellect :- There is another
power which we owe to the body, such as the power of walking,
or giving, or taking, and such like. There is a third which
we possess through the multitude of soldiers or riches, on
which account a king is said to have gr^t power. And the
fourth division of power consists in the being well or ill treated,
and treating others well or ill ; as, for instance, we may be
sick, or we may be taught, or we may be in vigorous health,
and many more cases of that sort. So that one kind of power
dwells in the intellect, another in the body, another in an
army and riches, and another in our capacity as agents or
patients.
LXIII. Of philanthropy there are three sorts. One which
is displayed in addressing people, when some persons address
every one whom they meet, and give them their right hand, and
greet them heartily ; another species is when one is disposed
to assist every one who is unfortunate. The last kind is that
sort of philanthropy which makes men pleasant boon com-
panions. So that there is one kind of philanthropy dis-
played in addressing people, another in benefiting them, and
a third in feasting and making merry with them.
LXIV. Happiness is divided into five parts. For one part
of it is wisdom in counsel ; another is a healthy condition of
the sensations and general health of body ; a third is good
fortune in one's ai^rs; a fourth kind is good reputation
among men ; a fifth is abundance of riches and of all those
things which are useful in life. Now wisdom in counsel arises
from good instruction, and from a person's having experience
of many things. A healthy condition of the sensations de-
pends on the limbs of the body ; as*, for instance, when one
sees with one's eyes, and hears with one's ears, and smells
with one's nose, and feels with one's body, just what one ought
U> see, and hear, and smell, and feel. Such a condition as
this is a healthy condition. And good fortune is when a man
does rightly and successfully what a good and energetic man
ought to do. And good reputation is when a man is well
spoken of. And abundance of riches is when a man has such
a sufficiency of everything which relates to the uses of life,
that he is able to benefit his friends, and to discharge all
L 2
148 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
public obligations in a splendid and liberal manner. And the
man who has all these different parts of happiness, is a per-
fectly happy man. So that happiness is made up of wisdom
in counsel, a good condition of the sensations and health of
body, good fortune, good reputation, and riches.
LXy. The arts are divided into three kinds. The first,
the second, and the third. The first are those of working
mines and cutting wood, for these are preparatory arts. The
second are such as working metals and carpentry, for they are
alterative arts. For working in metab makes arms out of
iron ; and carpentry makes flutes and lyres out of wood. The
third is the art which makes use of instruments; such as
horsemanship, which uses bridles; the military art, which uses
arms ; music, which uses flutes and lyres. So that there are
three species of art ; one of which is the first, another the
second, and ^Lnother the third.
LXVI. Good is divided into four kinds. One of which we
mean when we speak of a man endowed with private virtue,
as good ; another kind is that which we indicate, when we
call virtue and justice, good. A third kind is that which we
attribute to suitable food, and exercise, and medicine. The
fourth good, is that which we mean, when we speak of good
flute playing, good acting, and things of that sort There are
therefore four kinds of good. One the having virtue; another,
virtue itself; a third, useful food and exercise ; and fourthly,
we call skill in flute playing and acting, good.
LXVII. Of things existing, some are bad, some good,
and some neither one thing nor the other. Of these, we
call those things bad, which are invariably capable of doing
injury, such as intemperance, folly, injustice, and things of
that sort. And the opposites to these qualities are good.
But those things, which may at times be beneficial, and at
times injurious, such as walking, sitting down, and eating ; or
which have absolutely no power in any case to benefit or
injure any one ; these are neither bad nor good. Of things
existing then, there are some bad, and some good, and some
of a neutral character, neither bad nor good.
LXVIII. A good state of affairs with reference to the laws,
is divided.under three heads. One when the laws are good, for
that is a good state of affairs ; so too is it, when the citizens
abide by the existing laws ; and the third case is, when al-
PLATO. 149
though there are no positive laws, still men are good citizens
in deference to custom and to established institutions ; and
this is also called a good state of afiGsdrs. So that of these
three heads, one depends on the laws being good, another on
obedience to existing laws, and the third on men yielding to
good customs and institutions.
So again, lawlessness is divided into three heads. One of
which is, when the laws are bad, both as concerns strangers,
and the citizens ; another, when the citizens do not obey the
laws that are established; and the third is when there is
actually no law at all. So that one kind of lawlessness arises
from bad laws, another from disobedience to existing laws,
and the third from the absence of laws.
LXIX. Contraries are of three sorts ; for instance, we say
that good is contrary to evil, as justice to injustice, wisdom to
folly, and so on. Again, some evils are contrary to others, as
extravagance is to stinginess, and the being tortured with
justice to the being tortured with injustice. And such evils
as these are the contraries of other evils. Again, the heavy
is contrary to the light, the swift to the slow, the black to the
white ; so that some things which are of a neutral character,
neither good nor evil, are contrary to other things of a neu-
tral character. Of contraries then, there are some which are
so, as what is good is contrary to what is evil ; others, as x)ne
evil is contrary to another ; and others again, as neutral things
are contrary to other things of a neutral character.
LXX. Of good things there are three kinds ; for there are
some which can be possessed ; others, which can be shared ;
others, which one realizes in one's self. Those which can be
possessed, are those which it is possible for a person to have,
such as justice, or good health ; those can be shared, which it
is not possible for a person to have entirely to himself, but
which he may participate in ; as for instance, a person cannot
be the sole possessor of abstract good, but he may participate
in it. Those again a person realizes in himself, when they
are such, that he cannot possess them himself, or share them
with others, and yet they ought to exist ; as for instance, it
is good to be virtuous and just, but yet a man does not pos-
sess the being virtuous, or participate in it ; but the being
virtuous and just ought to exist in him. Of good things,
therefore, there are those which are possessed, those which are
shared, and those which ought to exist in a man.
160 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
LXXI. In the same manner, good comisel is divisible into
three kinds. For there is one kind which is derived from
past time, another from the fatm'e, another from the present.
That which is derived from past time is made np of instances,
as for instance what the Lacedsemonians suffered by trusting to
such and such people. That which relates to the present,is when
what is wanted, is to show that the fortifications are weak, the
men cowardly, or the provisions scanty. That which concerns
the future, is when the speaker urges that no injury ought to
be offered to ambassadors, in order that Greece may not get an
evil reputation; and supports his argument by instances. So
that good counsel has reference, firstly to what is past, secondly
to what is present, and thirdly to the future.
LXXII. Voice is divided into two parts, one of which is
animated, and the other inanimate. That is animated, which
proceeds from living animals, while sounds and echoes are
inanimate. Again, animated voice may be divided into that
which can be indicated by letters, and that which cannot ;
that which can be so indicated being the voice of men, and
that which cannot being the voice of animals ; so that one
kind of voice is animated, the other inanimate.
LXXIII. Of existing things, some are divisible and some
indivisible. Again, those which are divisible, consist either
of similar or of dissimilar parts. Those which are indivisible
are such as have no separate parts, and are not formed by any
combination, such as unity, a point, or a sound. But those are
divisible which are formed by some combination ; as, for
instance, syllables, and symphonies, and animals, and water,
and gold. . These too consist of similar parts, which are
made up of particles resembling one another, and of which
the whole does not differ from any part, except in number.
As for instance, water and gold, and everything which is
fusible, and so on. And these consist of dissimilar parts,
which are made np of various things not resembling one
another ; as for instance, a house, and things of that sort ; so
that of existing things, some are divisible and others indi-
visible. And of those which are divisible, some consist of
similar and others of dissimilar parts.
LXXIV. Again, of existing things, some are spoken of as
having an independent, and some only a relative existence.
Those which are spoken of as having an independent exist-
PLATO. 151
ence, are those which require nothing else to be added to
them, /wheti we are explaining their nature ; as man, ahorse,
and the other animals; for these have no need of any
additional explanation. But those things are said to have a
relative existence which do require some additional explana-
tion. As for instance, that which is greater than something
else, or less, or swifter, or more beautiful, and so on. For
that which is greater, is greater than something which is less ;
and that which is swifter, is swifter than something else. So
that, of existing things, some are spoken of as independently,
and others relatively. And thus he divided them at first,
according to Aristotle.
LXXV. There was also another man of the name of Plato,
a philosopher of Ehodes, a disciple of Pansetius, as Seleucus, the
grammarian says in the first book of his treatise on Philo-
sophy ; and another was a Peripatetic, a pupil of Aristotle ;
and there was a third, a pupil of Praxiphanes ; and there was
besides all these, the poet of the Old Comedy.
152
BOOK IV.
LIFE OF SPEUSIPPUS.
I. The long account which I have given of Plato was
compiled to the best of my power, and in it I collected with
great zeal and industry all that was reported of the man.
II. And he was succeeded by Speusippus, the son of
Eurymedon, and a citizen of Athens, of the Myrrhinusian
burgh, and he was the son of Plato's sister Potone.
III. He presided over his school for eight years, beginning
to do so in the hundred and eighth olympiad. And he set
up images of the Graces in the temple of the Muses, which
had been built in the Academy by Plato.
IV. And he always adhered to the doctrines which had
been adopted by Plato, though he was not of the same dis-
position as he. For he was a passionate man, and a slave to
pleasure. Accordingly, they say that he once in a rage threw
a puppy into a well ; and that for the sake of amusement, he
went all the way to Macedonia to the marriage of Cassander.
V. The female pupils of Plato, Lasthenea of Mantinea,
and Axiothea of Phlius, are said to have become disciples of
Speusippus also. And Dionysius, writing to him in a petulant
manner, says, " And one may learn philosophy too from your
female disciple from Arcadia ; moreover, Plato used to take
his pupils without exacting any fee from them ; but you collect
tribute from yours, whether willing or unwiUing.'*
VI. He was the first man, as Diodorus relates in the first
book of his Commentaries, who investigated in his school
what was common to the several sciences ; and who endeavoured,
as far as possible, to maintain their connection with each other.
He was also the first who published those things which
Isocrates called secrets, as Cseneus tells us. And the first too
who found out how to make hght baskets of bundles of twigs.
VII. fiut he became afflicted with paralysis, aud sent to
SPEUSIPPHS. 153
Xenocrates inviting him to come to bim, and to become his
successor in his school.
VIII. And they say that once, when he was being borne
in a carriage into the Academy, he met Diogenes, and said,
•* Hail ;" and Diogenes replied, " I will not say hail to you,
who, though in such a state as you are, endure to Uve."
IX. And at last in despair he put an end to his life, being
a man of a great age. And we have written this epigram on
him : —
Had I not known Speusippus thus had died.
No one would have persuaded me that he
Was e'er akin to Plato ; who would never
Have died desponding for so slight a grief.
But Plutarch, in his Life of Lysander, and again in his
Life of Sylla, says that he was kept in- a state of constant
inflammation by lice. For he was of a weak habit of body, as
Timotheus relates in his treatise on Lives.
X. Speusippus said to a rich man who was in love with
an ugly woman, ** What do you want with her? I will find you
a much prettier woman for ten talents."
XI. He left behind him a great number of commentaries^
and many dialogues; among which was one on Aristippus;
one on filches ; one on Pleasure ; one on Justice ; one on
Philosophy ; one on Friendship ; one on the Gods ; one
called the Philosopher ; one addressed to Cephalus ; one called
Cephalus ; one called Clinomachus, or Lysias ; one called the
Citizen ; one on the Soul ; one addressed to Gryllus ; one
called Aristippus ; one called the Test of Art. There were
also Commentaries by way of dialogues ; one on Art ; and
ten about those things which are alike in their treatment.
There are also books of divisions and arguments directed to
similar things ; Essays on the Genera and Species of
Examples ; an Essay addressed to Amartynus ; a Panegyric
on Plato ; Letters to Dion, and Dionysius, and Philip ; an
Essay on Legislation. There is also, the Mathematician ; the
Mandrobulus ; the Lysias ; Definitions ; and a series of
Commentaries. There are in all, forty-three thousand four
hundred and seventy-five lines.
Simonides dedicated to him the Histories, in which he had
related the actions of Dion and Bion. And in the second
154 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHEBS.
book of his Commentaries, Fharorinus states that Aiistotle
purchased his books for three talents.
XII. There was also another person of the name of Speu-
sippus, a phTsician of the school of Herophilus,* a natiTe of
Alexandria.
LIFE OF XENOCRATES.
I. Xenocbates was the son of Agathenor, and a native of
Chalcedon. From his ^rly youth he was a pupil of Plato,
and also accompanied him in lus voyages to Sicily.
II. He was by nature of a lazy cQspositiou, so that they say
that Plato said once, when comparing him to AristoUe, —
*' The one requires the spur, and the o^er the bridle." And
on another occasion, be said, " What a horse and what an ass
am I dressing opposite to one another ! "
III. In other respects Xenocrates was always of a solemn
and grave chaiacter, so that Plato was continually saying to
him, — " Xenocrates, sacrifice to the Graces." And he spent
the greater part of his time in the Academy, and whenever he
was about to go into the city, they say aU the turbulent and
quarrelsome rabble in the city used to make way for him to
pass by. And once, Phryne tiie courtesan wished to try him
and pretending that she was pursued by some people, she
fled and took refuge in his house; and he admitted her indeed,
because of what was due to humanity ; and as there was but
one bed in the room, he, at her entreaty, allowed her to share
it with him; but at last, in spite of all her entreaties, she got up
and went away, without having been able to succeed in her
purpose ', and told those who asked her, that she had quitted
a statue and not a man. But some say that the real story is,
that his pupils put Lais into his bed, and that he was so con-
tinent, that he submitted to some severe operations of excision
and oautezy.
* HerophiluB was one of themiost celebrated physicianB of antiqtiity,
who founded the Medical School at Alezandriay in the time of the fint
Ptolemy.
XENOCRATES. 155
rV. And lie was a very trustworthy man ; so that, though
it was not lawful for men to give evidence except on oath,
the Athenians made an exception in his favour alone.
y. He was also a man of the most contented disposition ;
accordingly they say that when Alexander sent him a large
sum of money, he took three thousand Attic drachmas, and
sent hack the rest, sajing, that Alexander wanted most, as he
had the greatest number of mouths to feed. And when some
was sent him by Antipater, he would not accept any of it, as
Myomianus tells us in his Similitudes. And once, when he
gained a golden crown, in a contest as to who coxdd drink
most, which was oflFered in the yearly festival of the Choes
by Dionysius, he went out and placed the crown at the feet of
the statue of Mercury, which was at the gate, where he was
also accustomed to deposit his garlands of flowers. It is said
also, that he was once sent with some colleagues as an ambas-
sador to Philip ; and that they were won over by gifts, and
went to his banquets and conversed with Philip ; but that he
would do none of these things, nor could Philip propitiate
him by these means ; on which account, when the other am-
bassadors arrived in Athens, they said that Xenocrates had
gone with them to no purpose ; and the people were ready to
punish him ; but when they had learnt from him that they
had now more need than ever to look to the welfare of their
city, for that Philip had already bribed all their counsellors,
but that he had been unable to win him over by any means, then
they say that the people honoured him with redoubled honour.
They add also, that Philip said afterwards, that Xenocrates
was the only one of those who had come to him who was in-
corruptible. And when he went as ambassador to Antipater
on the subject of the Athenian captives at the time of the
Samian war, and was invited by him to a banquet, he addressed
him in the following lines : —
I anfiwer, Qoddeas hmnan, la thy breast
By justice sway'd, by tender pity prest ?
HI fits it me, whose friends are sunk to beasts,
To quaff thy bowls, or riot in thy feasts :
Me would'st thou please, for them thy cares employ.
And them to me restore, and me to joy f*
♦ Hom. Od. 3L 887. Pope's Version, 460.
156 LIVES OF ElONENT PHILOSOPHEBS.
And Antipater, admiring the appropriateness of the quotation^
immediately released them.
VI. On one occasion, when a sparrow was pursued hy'a
hawk, and flew into his bosom, he caressed it, and let it go
again, saying that we ought not to betray a suppliant. And
being ridiculed by Bion, he said that he would not answer
him, for that tragedy, when ridiculed by comedy, did not con-
descend to make a reply. To one who had never learnt music,
or geometry, or astronomy, but who wished to become his dis-
ciple, he said, '* Be gone, for you have not yet the handles of
philosophy." But some say that he said, " Be gone, for I do not
card wool here." And when Dionysius said to Plato that some
one would cut off his head, he, being present, showed his
own, and said, " Not before they have cut off mine."
YII. They say too that once, when Antipater had come to
Athens and saluted him, he would not make him any reply
before he had flnished quietly the discourse which he was
delivering.
VIII. Being exceedingly devoid of every kind of pride, he
often used to meditate with himself several times a day ; and
always allotted one hour of each day, it is said, to silence.
IX. And he left behind him a great number of writings,
and books of recommendation, and verses, which are these, —
six books on Natural Philosophy; six on Wisdom; one on
Kiches, the Arcadian ; one volume on the Indefinite ; one on
a Child ; one on Temperance ; one on the Useful ; one on the
Free ; one on Death ; one on the Voluntafy ; two on Friend-
ship; one on Courtesy; two on Contraries; two on Happi-
ness ; one on Writing ; one on Memory ; one on Falsehood ;
the Callicles one ; two on Prudence ; one on (Economy ; one
on Temperance ; one on the Power of Law ; one on Political
Constitutions ; one on Piety ; one to show that Virtue may be
transmitted ; one about the Existent ; one on Fate ; one on
the ' Passions ; one on Lives ; one on Unanimity ; two on
Pupils; one on Justice; two on Virtue; one on Species; two
on Pleasure ; one on Life ; one on Manly Courage ; one on
The One; one on Ideas; one on Art; two on the Gods; two on
the Soul ; one on Knowledge ; one on the Statesman ; one on
Science ; one on Philosophy ; one on the School of Parme-
nides ; one the Archidemus; or an essay on Justice ; one on
the Good ; eight of those things which concern the Intellect ;
XENOCRATES 157
ten essays in solution of the difficulties which occur respecting
Orations ; six books on the study of Natural Philosophy ; the
Principal, one ; one treatise on Genus and Species ; one on
the doctrines of the Pythagoreans ; two books of Solutions ;
seven of Divisions ; several volumes *of Propositions ; several
also about the method of conducting Discussions. Besides all
this, there are one set of fifteen volumes, and another of sixteen,
on the subject of those studies which relate to Speaking;
nine more which treat of Eatiocination ; six books on Mathe-
matics ; two more books on subjects connected with the Intel-
lect ; five books on Geometry ; one book of Eeminiscences ;
one of Contraries ; one on Arithmetic ; one on the Contem-
plation of Numbers; one on Intervals; six on Astronomy;
four of elementary suggestions to Alexander, on the subject of
Eoyal Power ; one addressed to Arybas ; one addressed to
Hephaestion ; two on Geometry ; seven books of Verses.
X. But tlie Athenians, though he was such a great man,
once sold him, because he was unable to pay the tax to which
the metics were liable. And Demetrius Phalereus purchased
him, and so assisted both parties, Xenocrates by giving him his
freedom, and the Athenians in respect of the tax upon
metics. This circumstance is mentioned by Myronianus of
Amastra, in the first book of his chapters of Historical
Coincidences.
XI. He succeeded Spuesippus, and presided over the school
for twenty-five years, beginning at the archonship of Lysi-
machides, in the second year of the hundred and tenth olympiad.
XII. And he died in consequence of stumbling by night
against a dish, being more than eighty-two years of age.
And in one of our epigrams we speak thus of him : —
He struck against a brazen pot>
And cut his forehead deep,
And crying cruel is my lot,
In death he fell asleep.
So thus Xenocrates did fall,
The universal friend of alL
XIII. And there were five other people of the name of
Xenocrates. One was an ancient tactician, a fellow citizen, and
very near relation of the philosopher of whom we have been
speaking; and there is extant an oration of his which is
scribed, On Arsinoe, and which was written on the death of
158 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHEBS.
Arsinoe. A third was a philosopher who wrote some very in-
different elegiac poetry ; and that is not strange, for when
poets take to writing in prose, they succeed pretty well ; but
Ueu prose writers Ij th^ir hand'at poeUyf thej fail ; trora
which it is plain, that the one is a gift of nature, and the other
a work of art. The fourth was a statuary ; the £fth a writer
of songs, as we are told by Aristoxenus.
LIFE OF POLEMO.
I. PoLSMO was the son of Philostratus, an Athenian, of
the burgh of ^a. And when he was young, he was so very in-
temperate and profligate, that he used always to cany money
about with him, to procure the instant gratification of his
passions ; and he used also to hide money in the narrow alleys,
for this purpose. And once there was found in the Academy a
piece of three obols, hidden against one of the columns, which
he had put there for some purpose like that which I have indi-
cated ; and on one occasion he arranged beforehand with some
yoimg men, and rushed, adorned wiUi a garland, and drunk,
into the school of Xenocrates. But he took no notice of him,
and continued his discom^e as he had begun it, and it was in
praise of temperance ; and the young man, hearing it, was
gradually charmed, and became so industrious, that he sur-
passed all the rest of the disciples, and himself became the
successor of Xenocrates, in his school beginning in the hundred
and sixteenth olympiad.
II. And Antigonus, of Gaiystus, says in his Lives, that his
father had been tiie chief man of the city, and had kept chariots
for the Olympic games.
III. He also asserts that Polemo was prosecuted by his
ydie, on the charge of ill-treatment, because he indulged in
illicit pleasures, and despised her.
IV. But that when he began to devote himself to philo-
sophy, he adopted such a rigorous system of morals, that he for
the future always continued the same in appearance, and never
even changed Ins voice, on which account Grantor was charmed
by him. Accordingly, on one occasion, when a dog was mad
and had bitten his leg, he was the only person who did not turn
POLEMO. 159
pale ; and once, when there was a great confusion in the citj,
he, having heard the cause, remained where he was without
fleeing. In the theatres too he was quite immoveahle ; accord-
ingly, when Nicostratus the poet, who was sumamed Clytsem-
nestra, was once reading something to him and Crates, the
latter was excited to sympathy, he hehaved as though he
heard nothing. And altogether, he was such as Melanthius,
the painter, describes in his treatise on Fainting ; for he says
that some kind of obstinacy and harshness ought to exist in
works of art as in morals.
And Polemo used to say that a man ought to exercise him-
self in action, and not in dialectic speculations, as if one had
drunk in and dwelt upon a harmonious kind of system of art,
so as to be admired for one's shrewdness, in putting questions ;
but to be inconsistent with one's self in character. He was, then,
a well-bred and high-spirited man, avoiding what Aristophanes
says of Euripides, speeches of vinegar and assafcetida, such as
he says himself : —
Are base delights compared with better things ?
V. And he did not use to lecture on the propositions before
him while sitting down ; but he would walk about, it is said,
and so discuss them. And he was much honoured in the city
because of his noble sentiments ; and after he had been walking
about, he would rest in his garden ; and his pupils erected little
cabins near it, and dwelt near his school and corridor.
VJ. And as it seems, Polemo imitated Xenocrates in eveiy-
thing ; and Aristippus, in the fourth book of his treatise on
Ancient Luxury, says that Xenocrates loved him ; at all events,
Polemo used to be always speaking of him, and praising his
guileless nature, and hi^ rigorous virtues, and his chaste
severity, like that of a Doric building.
VII. He was /also very fond of Sophocles, and especially of
those passages where, according to one of the comic poets, he
seemed to have had a Molossiap hound for his colleague in
composing his poems ; and when there was, to use the expression
of Phrynichus :—
No sweet or washy liquor, but purest Pramnian wine.
And he used to say that Homer was an epic Sophocles, and
Sophocles a tragic Homer.
VIII. And he died when he was very old, of decUne, having
160 LIVES OP EMINENT PHILOSOPHEBS.
left behind him a great number of writings. And there is this
epigram of ours upon him : —
Bo you not hear, weVe buried Polemo,
Whom sickness, worst affliction of mankind
Attacked, and bore off to the shades below ;
Tet Polemo lies not here, but Polemo's bodj,
And that he did himself place here on earth,
Prepared in soul to mount up to the skies.
LIFE OF CRATES.
I. Crates was the son of Antigenes, and of the Thriasian
burgh, and a pupil and attached friend of Polemo. He was
also his successor as president of his school.
II. And they benefited one another so much, that not only
did they delight while alive in the same pursuits, but almost
to their latest breath did they resemble one another, and even
after they were both dead they shared the same tomb. In
reference to which circumstance Antagoras has written an
epigram on the pair, in which he expresses himself thus : —
X Stranger, who passest by, relate that here
The Gfod-like Crates Hes, and Polemo ;
Two men of kindred nobleness of mind ;
Out of whose holy mouths pure wisdom flowed,
And they with upright lives did well display.
The sh'ength of eSL their principles and teaching.
And they say too that it was in reference to this that Arcesi-
laus, when he came over to them from Tlieophrastus, said that
they were some gods, or else a remnant of the golden race ;
for they were not very fond of courting the people, but had
a disposition in accordance with the saying of Dionysodorus
the flute player, who is reported to have said, with great exulta-
tion and pride, that no one had ever heard his music in a
trireme or at a fountain as they had heard Ismenius.
III. Antigonus relates that he used to be a messmate of
Crantor, and that these philosophers and Arcesilaus lived to-
gether ; and that Arcesilaus lived in Grantor's house, but that
Polemo and Crates lived in the house of one of the citizens,
CEANTOR. 161
named Lysicles; and he says that Crates was, as I have already
mentioned, greatly attached to Polemo, and so was Arcesilaus
to Grantor.
IV. But when Crates died, as ApoUodorus relates in the
third book of his Chronicles, he left behind him compositions,
some on philosophical subjects and some on comedy, and some
which were speeches addressed to assemblies of the people, or
delivered on the occasion of embassies.
V. He also left behind him some eminent disciples, among
whom were Arcesilaus, about whom we shall speak presently,
for he too was a pupil of his, and Bion of the Borysthenes,
who was afterwards called a Theodorean, from the sect which
he espoused, and we shall speak of him immediately alter
Arcesilaus.
VI. But there were ten people of the name of Crates. The
first was a poet of the old comedy; the second was an orator
of Tralles, a pupil of Isocrates ; the third was an engineer who
served under Alexander ; the fourth a Cynic, whom we shall
mention hereafter ; the fifth a Peripatetic philosopher ; the
sixth the Academic philosopher, of whom we are speaking ; the
seventh a grammarian of Males ; the eighth a writer in geo-
metry ; the ninth an epigrammatic poet ; the tenth was an
Academic philosopher, a native of Tarsus.
LIFE OF CEANTOR
I. Cbantor, a native of Soli, being admired very greatly in
his own country, came to Athens and became a pupil of Xeno-
crates at the same time with Polemo.
II. And he left behind him memorials, in the shape of
writings, to the number of 30,000 lines, some of which, how-
ever, are by some writers attributed to Arcesilaus.
III. They say of him that when he was asked what it was
that he was so charmed with in Polemo, he replied, " That he
had never heard him speak in too high or too low a key."
IV. When he was ill he retired to the temple of -^scula-
pius, and there walked about, and people came to him from all
quarters, thinkng that he had gone thither, not on account of
M
162 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHEB8.
any disease, but because he wished to establish a school
there.
y. And among those who came to him was Arcesilaus, wish-
ing to be recommended by him to Polemo, although he was
much attached to him, as we shall mention in the life of Arce-
silaus. But when he got well he became a pupil of Polemo,
and was excessively admired on that account It is said, also,
that he left his property to Arcesilaus, to the amount of twelve
talents ; and that, being asked by him where he would like to
be buried, he said : —
It ifl a happy fate to lie entombed
In the reoesBOB of a well-lo Vd land.
YI. It is said also that he wrote poems, and that he sealed
them up in the temple of Minerva, in his own country ; and
MesBtetus the poet wrote thus about him : —
Crantor pleased men ; but greater pleasure still
He to the Muses gave, ere he aged grew.
Earth, tenderly embrace the holy man,
And let him lie in quiet undisturVd.
And of all writers, Crantor admired Homer and Euripides
most ; saying that the hardest thing possible was to write tra-
gically and in a manner to excite sympathy, without departing
from nature ; and he used to quote this line out of the Belle-
rophon : —
Alas ! why should I say alas ! for we
Have only borne the usual fate of man.
The following verses of Antagoras the poet are also attri-
buted to Crantor ; the subject is love, and they run thus :—
My mind is much perplexed ; for what, 0 Love,
Dare I pronounce your origin ? May I
Call you chiefest of the immortal GK>ds,
Of all the children whom dark Erebus
And Royal Night bore on the billowy waves
Of widest Ocean ? Or shall I bid you hail.
As son of proudest Venus ? or of Earth ?
Or of the untamed winds ? so fierce you rove,
Bringing mankind sad cares, yet not unmixed
With happy good, so two-fold is your nature.
And he was very ingenious at devising new words and ex-
pressions ; accordingly, he said that one tragedian had an un-
hewn {aviXixTiTog) voice, all over bark ; and he said that the
ARCESILAUS. 163
verses of k certain poet were full of moths ; and that the pro-
positions of Theophrastus had been written on an oyster shell.
But the work of his which is most admired is his book on
Mourning.
VII. And he died before Polemo and Crates, having been
attacked by the dropsy ; and we have written this epigram on
him:—
The worst of sickneases has overwhelmed you,
0 Grantor, and you thus did quit the earth,
Descending to the dark abyss of HelL
Now you are happy there ; but all the while
The sad Academy, and your native land
Of Soli mourn, bereaved of your eloquence.
LIFE OF ARCESILAUS.
I. ARCESILAUS was the son of Seuthes or Scythes, as Apollo-
dorus states in the third book of his Chronicles, and a native
of Pitane in ^olia.
II. He was the original founder of the Middle Academy, and
the first man who professed to suspend the declaration of his
judgment, because of the contrarieties of the reasons alleged
OQ either side. He was likewise the first who attempted to
argue on both sides of a question, and who also made the
method of discussion, which had been handed down by Plato,
by means of question and answer, more contentious than
before.
IIL He met with Crantor in the following manner. He
was one of four brothers, two by the same faUier and two by
the same mother. Of those who were by the same mother the
eldest was Pylades, and of those by the same father the eldest
was Maereas, who was his guardian ; and at first he was a pupil
of Autolycus the mathematician, who l^ppened to be a fellow
citizen of his before he went to Athens ; and with Autolycus
he travelled as far as Sardis. After that he became a pupil of
Xanthus the musician, and after that attended the lectures of
Theophrastus, and subsequently came over to the Academy to
Crantor. For Msereas his brother, whom 1 have mentioned
M 2
164 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHEBS.
before, urged him to apply himself to rhetoric ; but he himself
had a preference for philosophy, and when he became much
attached to him Grantor asked him, quoting a line out of the
Andromeda of Euripides : —
O yirgin, if I save you, will you thank me ?
And he replied by quoting the next Une to it : —
0 take me to you, stranger, as your slave,
Or wife, or what you please.
And ever after that they became very intimate, so that they
say Theophrastus was much annoyed, and said, " That a most
ingenious and well-disposed young man had deserted his
school."
IV. For he was not only very impressive in his discourse,
and displayed a great deal of learning in it, but he also tried
his hand at poetry, and there is extant an epigram which is
attributed to him, addressed to Attalus, which is as follows : —
Pergamus is not famed for arms alone.
But often hears its praise resound
For its fine horses, at the holy Pisa.
Tet, if a mortal may declare.
Its fate as hidden in the breast of Jove,
It will be famous for its woes.
There is another addressed to Menodorus the son of Euda-
mus, who was attached to one of his fellow pupils : —
Phrygia is a distant land, and so '
Is saored Thyatira, and Cadanade,
Tour country Menodorus. But from all.
As the unvaried song of bards relates,
An equal road does lie ' to Acheron,
That dark unmentioned river ; so you lie
Here far from home ; and here Eudamus raises'
This tomb above your bones, for he did love you.
Though you were poor, with an undying love.
But he admired Homer above all poets, and always used to
read a portion of his works before going to sleep ; and in the
morning he would say that he was going to the object of his
love, when he was going to read him. He said, too, that
Pindar was a wonderful man for filling the voice, and pouring
ABCESILAUS. 165
forth an abundant variety of words and expressions. He also,
when he was a young man, wrote a criticism on Ion.
V. And he was a pupil likewise of Hipponicus, the geome-
trican, whom he used to ridicule on other points as being lazy
and gaping ; but he admitted that in his own profession he was
clear sighted enough, and said that geometry had flown into
his mouth while he was yawning. And when he went out of
his mind, he took him to his own house, and took care of him
till he recovered his senses.
VI. And when Crates died, he succeeded him in the presi-
dency of his schools, a man of the name of Socrates willingly
yielcBng to him.
VII. And as he suspended his judgment on every point, he
never, as it is said, wrote one single book. But others say that
he was once detected correcting some passages in a work of
his ; and some assert that he published it, while others deny it,
and affirm that he threw it into the fire.
VIII. He seems to have been a great admirer of Plato, and
he possessed all his writings. He also, according to some
authorities, had a very high opinion of Pyrrho.
IX. He also studied dialectics, and the discussions of the
Eretrian school ; on which account Ariston said of him : —
First Plato comes, and Pyrrho last.
And in the middle DioMdorus.
And Timon speaks thus of him : —
For having on this side the heavy load
Of MenedemuB plac'd beneath his breast,
He'll to stout Pyrrho run, or Diodorus.
And presently afterwards he represents him as saying : —
m swim to Pyrrho, or that crooked sophist
Called Diodorus.
X. He was exceedingly fond of employing axioms, very
concise in his diction, and when speaking he laid an emphasis
on each separate word.
XI. He was also very fond of attacking others, and very
free spoken, on which account Timon in another passage speaks
of him thus : —
You'll not escape all notice while you thus
Attack the young man with your biting sarcasm.
166 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHEBS.
Once, when a young man was arguing against him with more
holdness than usual, he said, *' Will no one stop his mouth
with the knout ?"* And to a man who lay under the general
imputation of low dehauchery, and who argued with him that
one thing was not greater than another, he asked him whether
a cup holding two pints was not larger than one which held
only one. There was a certain Chian named Hemon, ex-
ceedingly ugly, but who fancied himself good looking, and
always went about in fine clothes ; this man asked him one
day, " If he thought that a wise man could feel attachment to
him ; " " Why should he not," said he, " when they love even
those who are less handsome than vou, and not so welUdressed
either?" and when the man, though one of the vilest charac-
ters possible, said to Arcesilaus as if he were addressing a very
rigid man : —
O, noble man, may I a question put^
Or must I hold my tongue f
Arcesilaus replied : —
0 wretched woman, why do you thus roughen
Tour voice, not speaking in your usual manner ?
And once, when he was plagued by a chattering fellow of low
extraction, he said : —
The sons of slaves are always talking vilely.f
Another time, when a talkative man was giving utterance to
a great deal of nonsense, he said, that ** He had not had a
nurse who was severe enough." And to some people he never
gave any answer at all. On one occasion a usurer, who made
pretence to some learning, said in his hearing that he did not
know something or other, on which he rejoined : —
For often times the passing winds do fill
The female bird, except when big with young.^
* Perhaps there is a pun here ; inTTftdyaXoc means not only a knout
composed of small bones strung together, but also a die.
f This is a quotation from some lost play of Euripides, slightly
altered ; the line, as printed in the Variorum Edition, voL vii, Mc.
Trag. cxxz. is —
iKSXatrra ir&vra ylvtrai, iovXiav rkieva.
X There is a pun here which is imtranslateable. The Greek is
9rXi}y hrav t6ko£ irap§, meaning usury, and also of&pring or delivery. ,
ABCESILAUa 167
And the lines come out of the ^nomaus of Sophocles. He
once reminded a certain dialectician, a pupil of Aleximes, who
was unable to explain correctly some saying of his master, of
what had been done by Philozenus to some brick-makers. For
when they were singing some of his songs very badly he came
upon them, and trampled their bricks under foot, saying, ** As
you spoil my works so will I spoil yours."
XII. And he used to be very indignant with those who
neglected proper opportunities of applying themselves to learn-
ing ; and he had a peculiar habit, while conversing, of using
the expression, ** 1 think," and *' So and so," naming the per-
son, " will not agree to this." And this was imitated by several
of his pupils, who copied also his style of expression and every-
thing about him. He was a man very ready at inventing new
words, and very quick at meeting objections, and at bringing
round the conversation to the subject before him, and at adapt-
ing it to every occasion, and he was the most convincing
speaker that could be found, on \yhich account numbers of
people flocked to his school, in spite of being somewhat alarmed
at his severity, which however they bore with complacency,
for he was a veiy kind man, and one who inspired his hearers
with abundant hope, and in his manner of life he was very
affable and liberal, always ready to do any one a service with-
out any parade, and shrinking from any expression of gratitude
on the part of those whom he had obliged. Accordingly once,
when he had gone to visit Gtesibius who was ill, seeing him in
great distress from want, he secretly slipped his purse under
his pillow ; and when Gtesibius found it, " This," said he, " is
the amusement of Arcesilaus.'* And at another time he sent
him a thousand drachmas. He it was also who introduced
Archias the Arcadian to Eumenes, and who procured liim many
favours from him.
XIII. And being a very liberal man and utterly regardless
of money, he made the most splendid display of silver plate,
and in his exhibition of gold plate he vied with that of Arche-
crates and Gallecrates ; and he was constantly assisting and
contributing to the wants of others with money ; and once,
when some one had borrowed from him some articles of silver
plate to help him entertain his friends, and did not offer to re-
turn them, he never asked for them back or reclaimed them ;
but some say that he lent them with the .purpose that they
168 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
should be kept, and that when the man returned them, he
made him a present of them as he was a poor man. He had
also property in Pitana, the revenues from which were trans-
mitted to him by his brother Pylades.
XIV. Moreover, Eumenes, the son of Phileteerus, supplied
him with many things, on which account he was the only
king to whom he addressed any of his discourses. And when
many philosophers paid court to Antigonus and went out to
meet him when he arrived, he himself kept quiet, not wishing
to make his acquaintance. But he was a great friend of
Hierocles, the governor of the harbours of Mimychia and the
Piraeus ; and at festivals he always paid him a visit. And
when he constantly endeavoured to persuade him to pay his
respects to Antigonus, he would not ; but though he accom-
panied him as far as his gates, he turned back himself.
And after the sea-fight of Antigonus, when many people
went to him and wrote him letters to comfort him for his
defeat, he seither went nor wrote ; but still in the service of
his country, he went to Demetrias as ambassador to Anti-
gonus, and succeeded in the object of his mission.
XV. And he spent all his time in the Academy, and avoided
meddling with public affairs, but at times he would spend
some days in the PirsBus of Athens, discoursing on philo-
sophical subjects, from his friendship for Hierocles, which
conduct of his gave rise to unfavourable reports being raised
against him by some people.
XVI. Being a man of very expensive habits, for he was in
this respect a sort of second Aristippus, he often went to dine
with his friends. He also lived openly with Theodote and
PhilsBte, two courtesans of Elis ; and to those who reproached
him for this conduct, he used to quote the opinions of Aris-
tippus. He was also very fond of the society of young men,
and of a very affectionate disposition, on which account Aristi,
the Chian, a Stoic philosopher, used to accuse him of being a
corrupter of the youth of the city, and a profligate man. He
is said also to have been greatly attached to Demetrius, who
sailed to Cyrene, and to Cleochares of Mydea, of whom he
said to his messmates, that he wished to open the door to him,
but that he prevented him.
XVII. Demochares the son of Laches, and Pythocles the
son of Bugelus, were also among his friends, and he said that
ARCESILAUS. 169
he humoured them in all their wishes hecause of his great
patience. And, on this account, those people to whom I
have hefore alluded, used to attack him and ridicule him as a
popularity hunter and vain -glorious man. And they set upon
him very violently at an entertainment given hy Hieronymus,
the Peripatetic, when he invited his friends on the hirthday
of Alcymeus, the son of Antigonus, on which occasion Anti-
gonus sent him a large sum of money to promote the con-
viviality. On this occasion, as he avoided all discussion
during the continuance of the banquet, when Aridelus pro-
posed to him a question which required some deliberation, and
entreated him to discourse upon it, it is said that he replied,
" But this is more especially the business of philosophy, to
know the proper time for everything." With reference to the
charge that was brought against him of being a popularity
hunter, Timon speaks, among other matters, mentioning it
in the following manner : —
He spoke and glided quick among the crowd.
They gazed on him as finches who behold
An owl among them. Tou then please the people !
Alas, poor fool, 'tis no great matter that ;
Why give yourself such airs for such a trifle ?
XVIII. However, in all other respects he was so free from
vanity, that he used to advise his pupils to become the dis-
ciples of other men ; and once, when a young man from Chios
was not satisfied with his school, but preferred that of Hiero-
nymus, whom I have mentioned before, he himself took him
and introduced him to tliat philosopher, recommending him
to preserve his regularity of conduct And there is a very
witty saying of his recorded. For when some one asked him
once, why people left other schools to go to the Epicureans,
but no one left the Epicureans to join other sects, he replied,
'* People sometimes make eunuchs of men, but no one can ever
make a man out of an eunuch."
XIX. At last, when he was near his end, he left all his
property to his brother Pylades, because he, without the
knowledge of Maereas, had taken him to Chios and had
brought him from thence to Athens. He never married a
wife, and never had any children. He made three copies of
his will, and deposited one in Eretria with Amphicritus, and
170 UYES OF EMINBNT PHILOSOPHEBS.
one at Athens with some of his friends, and the third he sent
to his own home to Thaumasias, one of his relations, en-
treating him to keep it. And he also wrote him the following
letter : —
ABGKSILAUS TO THAUMASIAS.
" I have given Diogenes a copy of my will to convey to you.
For, because I am frequently unwell and have got very in-
firm, I have thought it right to make a will, that, if anything
should happen to me I might not depart with the feehngs of
having done you any injury, who have been so constantly af-
fectionate to me. And as you have been at all times the most
faithful to me of all my friends, I entreat you to preserve this
for me out of regard for my old age and your regard for me.
Take care then to behave justly towards me, remembering
how much I entrust to your integrity, so that I may appear to
have managed my affairs well, as ^ as depends on you ; and
there is another copy of this will at Athens, in the care of
some of my friends, and another at Eretria, in the hands of
Amphicritus."
XX. He died, as Hermippus relates, after having drunk an
excessive quantity of wine, and then became delirious, when
he was seventy-five years old ; and he was more beloved by
the Athenians than any one else had ever been. And we have
written the following epigram on him : —
0 wise Arcesilaua, why didst thou drink
So vast a quanti^ of unmixed wine,
Ab to lose all your BenseB, and then die f
1 pity you not bo much for your death.
As for the insult that you thus did offer
The Muses, by your sad excess in wine.
XXI. There were also three other persons of the name of
Arcesilaus ; one a poet of the old Comedy ; another an elegiac
poet; the third a sculptor, on whom Simonides wrote the
following epigram : —
This is a statue of chaste Dian's self
The price two hundred Parian drachmas fine,
Stamped with the image of the wanton goat.
It is the work of wise Arcesilaus,
The son of Aristodicus : a man,
Whose hands Minerva guided in his art
WON. 171
The philosopher of whom we have been speaking flourished,
as Apollodonis tells us in his Chronicles, about the hundred
and twentieth olympiad.
LIFE OF BION. '
I. BioK was a native of the country around the Borysthenes ;
but as to who his parents were, and to what circumstances it
was owing that he applied himself to the study of philosophy,
we know no more than what he himself told Antigonus. For
when Antigonus asked him :•—
What art thou, say I fh)m whence, from whom you came,
Who are your parente ? t^ thy race^ thy name ;*
He,' knowing that he had been misrepresented to the king, said
to him, " My father was a freedman, who used to wipe his mouth
with his sleeve,** (by which he meant that he used to sell salt
fish). " As to his race, he was a native of the district of the
Borysthenes ; having no countenance, but only a brand in his
face, a token of the bitter cruelty of his master. My mother
was such a woman as a man of that condition might marry,
taken out of a brothel. Then, my father being in arrears to
the tax-gatherers, was sold with all his family, and with me
among them ; and as I was young and good looking, a certain
orator purchased me, and when he died he left me everything.
And I, having burnt all his books, and torn up all his papers,
came to Athens and applied myself to the study ^of Philo-
sophy : —
Such was my father, and from him I came,
The honoured author of my birth and name.t '
This is all that I can tell you of myself: so that Persaeus
and Philonides may give up telling these stories about me :
and you may judge of me on my own merits."
♦ Hom. Od. X. 385. Pope's Version, 387.
*t Horn. n. vi 211. Pope's Version, 254.
172 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
II. And Bion was tnily a man of great versatility, and a
very subtle philosopher, and a man who gave all who chose
great opportunities of practising philosophy. In some respects
he was of a gentle disposition, and very much inclined to
indulge in vanity.
III. And he left behind him many memorials of himself in
the way of writings, and also many apophthegms full of useful
sentiments. As for instance, once when he was reproved for
having failed to charm a young man, he replied, " You cannot
possibly draw up cheese with a hook before it has got hard."
On another occasion he was asked who was the most miserable
of men, and replied, " He who has set his heart on the greatest
prosperity." When he was asked whethw it was advisable to
many (for this answer also is attributed to him), he replied,
** If you marry an ugly woman you will have a punishment
(iro/vij), and if a handsome woman you will have one who is
common" (xotvti). He called old age a port to shelter one
from misfortune ; and accordingly, he said that every one fled
to it. He said that glory was the mother of years ; that beauty
was a good which concerned others rather than one's self; that
riches were the sinews of business. To a man who had
squandered his estate he said, " The earth swallowed up
Amphiaraus, but you have swallowed up the earth.*' Another
saying of his was that it was a great evil not to be able to bear
evil. And he condemned those who burnt the dead as though
they felt nothing, and then mocked them as though they did
feel. And he was always saying that it was better to put one's
own beauty at the disposal of another, than to covet the beauty
of others ; for that one who did so was injuring both his body
and his soul. And he used to blame Socrates saying, that if
he derived no advantage from Alcibiades he was foolish, and if
he never derived any advantage from him he then deserved
no credit. He used to say that the way to the shades below
was easy ; and accordingly, that people went there with their
eyes shut. He used to blame Alcibiades, saying that while
he was a boy he seduced husbands from their wives, and
when he had become a young man he seduced the wives from
their husbands. While most of the Athenians at Hhodes
practised rhetoric, he himself used to give lectures on philoso-
phical subjects ; and to one who blamed him for this he said,
'' I have bought wheat, and I sell barley.*'
, BION. 1 73
It was a saying of his that the inhabitants of the shades
below would be more punished if they carried water in buckets
that were whole, than in such as were bored. To a chattering
fellow who was soliciting him for aid, he said, " I will do what
is sufficient for you, if you will send deputies to me, and
forbear to come yourself.** Once when he was at sea in the
company of some wicked men, he fell into the hands of pirates ;
and when the rest said, " We are undone, if we are known."
" But I," said he, ** am undone if we are not known." He
used to say that self-conceit was the enemy of progress. Of a
rich man who was mean and niggardly, he said, '* That man
does not possess his estate, but his estate possesses him." He
used to say that stingy men took care of their property as if
it was their own, but derived no advantage from it as if it
belonged to other people. Another of his sayings was, that
young men ought to display courage, but that old men ought
to be distinguished for prudence. And that prudence was as
much superior to the other virtues as sight was to the other
senses. And that it was not right to speak of old age,
at which every one is desirous to arrive. To an envious
man who was looking gloomy, he said, "1 know not whether it
is because some misfortune has happened to you, or some
good fortune to some one else." One thing that he used to
say was, that a mean extraction was a bad companion to
freedom of speech. For: —
It does enslave a man, however bold
His speech may be.*
And another was that we ought to keep our friends, what-
ever sort of people they may be, so that we may not seem
to have been intimate with wicked men, or to have abandoned
good men.
IV. Very early in his career he abandoned the school of the
Academy, and at the same time became a disciple of Crates.
Then he passed over to the sect of the Cynics, taking their
coarse cloak and wallet. For what else could ever have
changed his nature into one of such apathy ? After that he
adopted the Theodorean principles, having become a disciple
of Theodorus the Atheist, who was used to employ every kind
of reasoning in support of his system of philosophy. After
* This is a quotation from the Hippolytus of Euripides, y. 424.
174 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
leaving him, he became a pupil of Theophrastus, the Perips^
tedc.
V. He was very fond of theatrical entertainments, and very
skilful in distracting his hearers by exciting a laugh, giving
things disparaging names. And because he used to avail
himself of every species of reasoning, they relate that Eretos-
thenes said that Bion was the first person who had clothed
philosophy in a flowery robe.
VI. He was also very ingenious in parodying passages, and
adapting them to circumstances as they arose. As for instance,
I may cite the following :—
Tender Archytas, bom of tuneful lyre,
Whom thoughts of happy vanity inspire ;
Host skilled of mortals in appeasing ire.*
And he jested on every part of music and geometiy*
YII. He was a man of very expensive habits, and on this
account he used to go from city to city, and at times he would
contrive the most amazing devices.
YIII. Accordingly, in Ehodes, he persuaded the sailors to
put on the habiliments of philosophical students and follow
him about ; and then he made himself conspicuous by entering
the gymnasium with this train of followers.
IX. He was accustomed also to adopt young men as his
sons, in order to derive assistance from them in his pleasures,
and to be protected by their affection for him. But he was a
very selfish man, and very fond of quoting the saying, " The
property of friends is common ;" owing to which it is that no
one is spoken of as a disciple of his, though so many men
* I doubt if the wit of these parodies will be appreciated by the
modem reader. The lines of Homer, which they are intended to
parody, are : —
''O iiaKap ArpttSri, fiocpi}ycWc> dXPioSaiuutv. — II. 3, 182.
^i (TV n^Xctoti, vdvTtav UnayXdraT* avipGtv, — IL v. 146.
The first of which is translated by Pope :—
Oh, blest Atrides, bom of prosperous fate,
Successful monarch of a mighty state ! ,
The Greek parody in the text is : —
'Q irtirov 'Apx^^'o* ^aXXijytvif, 6Xj3forv0e
TiiQ vvarm iptdof; Trdvruv ifurtipOTUT dvdp&v*
BION. 175
attended his school. And he made some very shameless ;
accordingly, Betion, one of his intimate acquaintances, is
reported to have said once to Menedemus, " So Menedemus
constantly spends the evening with Bion, and I see no harm
in it." He used also to talk with great impiety to those who
conversed with him, having derived his opinions on this
subject from Theodorus.
X. And when at a later period he became afflicted with
disease, as the people of Chalcis said, for he died there, he was
persuaded to wear amulets and charms, and to show his
repentance for the insults that he had offered to the Gods.
But he suffered fearfully for want of proper people to attend
him, until Antigonus sent him two servants. And he followed
him in a litter, as Pharorinus relates in his Universal History.
And the circumstances of his death we have ourselves spoken
of in the following lines : —
We hear that Bion the Borysthenite,
Whom the ferocious Scythian land brought forth,
Used to deny that there were Gk>ds at all.
Now, if he'd persevered in this opinion,
One would have said he speaks just as he thinks ;
Though certainly his thoughts are quite mistaken.
But when a lengthened sickness overtook him,
And he began to fear lest he should die ;
This man who heretofore denied the Qoda,
And would not even look upon a temple,
And mocked all those who e'er approached the Gods
With prayer or sacrifice ; who ne'er, not even
For his own hearth, and home, and household table,
Begaled the Qods with savoury fat and incense,
Who never once said, " I have sinned, but spare me."
Then did this atheist shrink, and give his neck
To an old woman to hang charms upon,
And bound his arms with magic amulets,
With laurel branches blocked his doors and windows,
Ready to do and venture anything
Rather than die. Fool that he was, who thought
To win the Qods to come into existence.
Whenever he might think he wanted them.
So wise too late, when now mere dust and ashes,
He put his hand forth. Hail, great Pluto, Hail I
XI. There were ten people of the name of Bion. First of
all, the one who flourished at the same time with Fherecydes
of Syros, and who has left two books beliind him, which are
176 LIVES OP EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
still extant; lie was a native of Proconnesas. The secjond
was a Syracusan, tbe author of a system of rhetoric. The
third was the man of whom we have been speaking. The
fourth was a pupil of Democritus, and a mathematician, a
native of Abdera, who wrote in both the Attic and Ionic
dialect. He was the person who first asserted that (there
were countries where there was night for six months, and day
for six months. The fifth was a native of Soli ; who wrote a
history of j^thiqpia. The sixth was a rhetorician, who has
left behind him nine books, inscribed with the names of the
Muses, which are still extant. The eighth was a Milesian
statuary, who is mentioned by Polemo. The ninth was a
tragic poet of the number of those who are called Tarsicans.
The tenth was a statuary, a native of Clazomenas or Chios, who
is mentioned by Hipponax.
LIFE OF LACYDES.
I. Lacydes, the son of Alexander, was a native of Cyrene.
He it is who was the founder of the New Academy, having
succeeded Arcesilaus ; and he was a man of great gravity of
character and demeanour, and one who had many imitators.
II. He was industrious from his very childhood, and poor,
but very pleasing and sociable in his manners.
III. They say that he had a pleasant way of managing his
house-keeping affairs. For when he had taken anything out
of his store-chest, he would seal it up again, and throw in his
seal through the hole, so that it should be impossible for any-
thing of what he had laid up there to be stolen from him, or
carried off. But his servants learning this contrivance of
his, broke the seal, and carried off as much as they pleased,
and then they put the ring back through the hole in the same
manner as before ; and though they did this repeatedly, they
were never detected.
IV. Lacydes now used to hold his school in the Academy in
the garden which had been laid out by Attains the king,
and it was called the Lacydeum, after him. And he was the
OARNEADES, 177
only man, who, while alive, resigned his school to a successor ;
but be resigned this to Telicles and Evander, of Phocis ; and
Hegesinus, of Pergamus, succeeded Evander; and he himself
was in his turn succeeded by GarneadeSi
V, There is a witty saying, which is attributed to Lacydes.
For they say that when Attains sent for him, he answered
that statues ought to be seen at a distance. On another
occasion, as it is reported, he; was studying geometry very late
in life, and some said to him, *^ Is it then a time for you to be
learning now?" " If it is not," he replied, " when will it be?"
VI. And he died in the fourth year of the hundred and
thirty-fourth Olympiad, when he had presided over his school
twenty-six years. And his death was caused by paralysis,
which was brought on by drinking. And we ourselves have
Jested oipon him in the following language.
*Tis an odd story that I heard of you —
Lacydes, that you went with hasty steps,
Spurred on by Bacchus, to the shades below.
How then, if this be true, can it be said,
That Bacchus e*er trips up his votaries' feet
'Tis a mistake his being named Lyseus.*
LIFE OF CARNEADES,
I. Carneades was the son of Epicomus, or Philocomus, as
Alexander stales in his Successions ; and a native of Gyrene.
II. He read all the books of the Stoics with great care,
and especially those of Ghrysippus ; and then he wrote replies
to them, but did it at the same time with such modesty that
he used to say, " If Ghrysippus had not lived, I should never
have existed."
III. He was a man of as great industry as ever existed ;
not, however, very much devoted to the investigation of subject?^
of natural philosophy, but morie fond of the discussion of ethical
topics, on which account he used to let his hair and his nails
grow, from his entire devotion of all his time to philosophical
. * From Xirw, 9olvo, to relax or weaken the limbs,
N
178 / LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHEBS.
discussion. And he was so eminent as a philosopher, that
the orators would quit their own schools and come and listen
to his lectures.
IV. He was also a man of a very powerful voice, so that
the president of the Gymnasium sent to him once, to desire he
would not shout so loudly. • And he replied, " Give me then,
measure for my voice." And the gymnasiarch again rejoined
with great wit, for he said, "You have a measure in your pupils."
V. He was a very vehement speaker, and one difficult to
contend with in the investigation of a point. And he used to
decline all invitations to entertainments, for the reasons I
have already mentioned.
VI. On one occasion, when Mentor, the Bithynian, one
of his pupils, came to him to attend his school, observing
that he was trying to seduce his mistress (as Phavorinus
relates in his Universal History), while he was in the middle
of his lecture, he made the following parody in allusion to
him: —
A weak old man comes hither, like in voice,
And gait, and figure, to the prudent Mentor *
I order him to be expelled this scliooL
And Mentor rising up, replied : —
Thus did they speak, and straight the o^ers rose.
VII. He appears to have been beset with fears of death ;
as he was continually saying, ** Nature, who has put this frame
together, will also dissolve it." And learning that Antipater had
died after having taken poison, he felt a desire to imitate the
boldness of his departure, and said, " Give me sonie too.''
And when tliey asked "What?" "Some mead," said he.
And it is said that an eclipse of the moon happened when he
died, the most beautiful of all the stars, next to the sun, in-
dicating (as any one might say) its sympathy with the philo-
sopher. And ApoUodorus, in his Chronicles, says that he
died in the fourth year of the hundred and sixty-second olym-
piad, being eighty-five years old.
VIII. There are some letters extant addressed by hira to
Ariarathes, the king of the Cappadocians. All the other
writings which are attributed to him were written by his
disciples, for he himself left nothing behind him. And I
CUTOMACHUS. 179
have written on him the following Hnes in logoaedical Arche-
bulian metre.
Why now, 0 Muse, do you wish me Cameades to confute ?
He was an ignoramus, as he did not \mderstand
Why he should stand in fear of death : so once, when he'd a cough,
The worst of all diseases that afifect the human frame.
He cared not for a remedy ; but when the news did reach him.
That brave Antipater had ta'en some poison, and so died,
" Give me, said he, some stuff to drink." " Some what V — " Some lus-
cious mead.**
Moreover, he'd this saying at all times upon his lips :
" Nature did-^make me, and she does together keep me still ;
But soon the time wiU come when she will pull me all to pieces.*'
But still at last he yielded up the ghost : though long ago
He might have died, and so escaped the evils that befell him.
IX. It is said that at night he was not aware when lights were
brought in ; and that once he ordered his servant to light the
candles, and when he had brought them in and told him, *' I
have brought them;" "Well then," said he, "read by the
light of them."
X. He had a great many other disciples; but the most
eminent of them was Clitomachus, whom we must mention
presently.
XI. There was also another man of the name of Carneades ,
a very indifferent elegiac poet.
LIFE OF CLITOMACHUS.
I. Clitomachus was a Carthaginian. He was called .
Asdrubal, and used to lecture on philosophy in his own country
in his native language.
II. But when he came to Athens, at the age of forty years,
he became a pupil of Cameades ; and, as he was pleased with
his industry, he caused him to be instructed in literature,
and himself educated the man carefully. And he carried his
diligence to such a degree, that he composed more than four
hundred books.
III. And he succeeded Cameades in his schools ; and he
illustrated his principles a great deal by his writings : as he
N 2
180 LIVES OF ESaNEKT PHILOSOPHERS
himself had studied the doctrines of their sects, the Academic,
the Peripatetic, and the Stoic. Timon attacks the \7h0le school
of Academics, as a body, in these lines : —
Kor the unprofitable chattering
Of all the Academics.
But now that we have gone through the philosophers of
Plato's school, let us go to. the Peripatetics, who also derived
their doctrines from Plato ; and the founder of their sect was
Aristotle.
181
BOOK V.
LIFE OF ARISTOTLE. :
I. Aristotle was the son of Nicomachus and PhsBstias, a
citizen of Stagira; and Nieomachus was descended from
Nicomachus, the son of Machaon, the . son of u^sculapius, as
Hermippus tells us in his treatise on Aristotle ; and he hved
with Amyntas, the king of the Macedonians, as both a
physician and a friend.
II. He was the most eminent of all the pupils of Plato ; he
had a lisping voice, as is asserted by Timodieus the Athenian,
in his work on Lives. He had also very thin legs, they sa;^,
and small eyes ; but he used to indulge in very conspicuous
dress, and rings, and used to dress his hair carefully. .
III. He had also a son named Nicomachus, by Herpyllis
his concubine, as we are told by Timotheus.
IV. He seceded from Plato while he was still alive ; so
that they tell a story that he said, " Aristotle has kicked us off
just as chickens do their mother after they, have been hatched.''
But Hermippus says in his Lives, that while he was absent on
an embassy to Philip, on behalf of the Athenians, Xenocrates
became the president of the school in the Academy ; and that
when he returned and saw the school under the presidency of
some one else, he selected a promenade in the Lyceum, in
which he used to walk up and down with his disciples, dis-
cussing subjects of philosophy till the time for anointing
themselves came ; on which account he was called a Peripa-
tetic* But others say that he got this name because once
when Alexander was walking about after recovering from a
sickness, he accompanied him and kept conversing with him.
But when his pupils became numerous, he then gave them
seats, saying:-
It would be shame for me to hold my peace,
And for Isocrates to keep on talking.
* From 7r£pi9rarca», '*to walk about**
182 LIVES OP EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
And he used to accustom his disciples to discuss any
question which might he proposed, training them just as an
orator might.
V. After that he went to Hermias the Eunuch, the tyrant
of Atameus, who, as it is said, allowed him all kinds of
liberties ; and some sav that he formed a matrimonial connec-
tion with him, giving him either his daughter or his niece in
marriage, as is recorded by Demetrius of Magnesia, in his
essay on Poets and Prose-writers of the same name. And the
same authority says that Hermias had been the slave of
Eubulus, and a Bithynian by descent, and that he slew his
master. But Aristippus, in the first book of his treatise on
Ancient Luxury, says that Aristotle was enamoured of the
concubine of Hermias, and that, as Hermias gave his consent,
he married her ; and ^vas so overjoyed that he sacrificed to
her, as the Athenians do to the Eleusinian Ceres. And he
wrote a hymn to Hermias, which is given at length below.
VI. After that he lived in Macedonia, at the court of
Philip, and was entrusted by him with his son Alexander as a
pupil ; and he entreated him to restore his native city which
had been destroyed by Philip, and had his request granted ;
and he also made laws for the citizens. And also he used to
make laws in his schools, doing this in imitation of Xeno-
crates, so that he appointed a president every ten days. And
when he thought that he had spent time enough with Alex-
ander, he departed for Athens, having recommended to him
his relation Callisthenes, a native of Olynthus ; but as he
spoke too freely to the king, and would not take Aristotle's
advice, he reproached him and said : —
Alas 1 my child, in life's primeyal bloom, \
Such hasty words will bring thee to thy doom.*
And his prophecy was fulfilled, for as he was believed by
Hermolaus to have been privy to the plot against Alexander,
he was shut up in an iron cage, covered with lice, and untended ;
and at last he was given to a lion, and so died,
VII. Aristotle then having come to Athens, and having
presided over his school there for thirteen years, retired
secretly to Chalcis, as Eurymedon, the hierophant had im-
peached him on an indictment for impiety, though Pharorinus,
♦ II. 18. 95.
ARISTOTLE. 183
in his Universal Histoiy, says that his prosecutor was Demo-
phelus, on the ground of having written the hymn to the
beforementioned Hermias, and also the following epigram
which was engraven on his statue at Delphi : —
The tyrant of the Persian archer race,
I Broke through the laws of God to slay this man ;
Not by the manly spear in open fight,
But by the treachery of a faithless friend.
And after tJiat he died of taking a draught of aconite, as
Eumelus says in the 'fifth book of his Histories, at the age of
seventy years. And the same author says that he was thirty
years old when he first became acquainted with Plato. But
this is a mistake of his, for he did only live in reality sixty-
three years, and he was seventeen years old when he first
attached himself to Plato. And the hymn in honour of
Hermias is as follows : —
O Virtue, won by earnest strife.
And holding out the noblest prize
That ever gilded earthly life,
Or drew it on to seek the skies ;
For thee what son of Greece would not
Deem it an enviable lot.
To live the life, to die the death.
That fears no weary hour, shrinks from no fiery breath f
Such fruit hast thou of heavenly bloom,
A lure more rich than golden heap,
^ More tempting than the joys of home.
More bland than spell of soft-eyed sleep.
For thee Alcides, son of Jove,
And the twin boys of Leda strove.
With patient toil and sinewy might,
Thy glorious prize to grasp, to reach thy lofty height.
Achilles, Ajax, for thy love
Descended to the realms of night ;
Atameus* King thy vision drove,
To quit for aye the glad sun-light,
Therefore, to memory's daughters dear.
His deathless name, his pure career.
Live shrined in song, and link'd with awe.
The awe of Xenian Jove, and faithful friendship's law.*
* This very spirited version I owe to the kindness of my brother,
the Rev. J. E. Yonge, of Eton College.
184 LIVES OF EBflNENT PHILOSOPHEB&
There is also an epigram of ours upon him, which mxis
thus: —
Eurymedon, the faithful minister
Of the mysterious Eleusinian Queen,
Was once about t' impeach the Sta^rite
Of impious guHt. But he escaped his hands
By mighty draught of friendly aconite,
And thus defeated all his wicked arts.
Pharorinus, in his Universal History, says that Aristotle was
the first person who ever composed a speech to be delivered
in his own defence in a court of justice, aird that he did so on
the occasion of this prosecution, and said that at Athens : —
Fears upon pear-tirees grow ; on fig-trees, fig&
Apollodorus, in his Chronicles, says that he was bom in the
first year of the ninety-ninth olympiad, and that he attached
himself to Plato, and remained with him for twonty years,
having been seventeen years of age when he originally joined
him. And he went to Mitylene in the archonship of Eubulus,
in the fourth year of the hundred and eighth olympiad. But
as Plato had died in the first year of this same olympiad, in
the archonship of Theophilus, he departed for the court of
Hermias, and. remained there three years. And in the archon-
ship of Pythodotus he went to the court of Philip, in the
second year of the hundred and ninth olympiad, when
Alexander was fifteen years old ; and he came to Athens in
the second year of the hundred and eleventh olympiad, and
presided over his school in the Lyceum for thirteen years :
after that he departed to Chalcis, in the third year of the
hundred and fourteenth olympiad, and died, at about the age
of sixty-three years, of disease, the same year that Demosthenes
died in Calumia, in the archonship of Philocles.
VIII. It is said also that he was offended with the king,
because of the result of the conspiracy of Calisthenes against
Alexander; and that the king, for the sake of annoying him»
promoted Anaximenes to honour, and sent presents to Xeno-
crates. And Theocritus, of Chios» wrote an epigram upon him
to ridicule him, in the following terms, as it is quoted by
Ambryon in his account of Theocritus : —
The empty-headed Aristotle raised
This empty tomb to Hermias the Eunuch,
1%:
ARISTOTLS. IBS
The ancient slaye of the ill-us'd £ubulu8»
[Who, for his monstrouB appetite, preferred
The Bosphorus to Acadenm's groyes.]
And Timon attacked him too, saying of him :—
Nor the Bad chattering of the empiy Aristotle*
Such was the life of the philosopher.
IX. We have also met with his will, which is couched in
the following terms : — " May things turn out well ; hut if any
thing happens to him, in that case Aristotle has made the
following disposition of his affairs. That Antipater shall be
the general and universal executor. And until Nicanor marries
my daughter, I appoint Aristomedes, Timarchus, Hipparchus,
Dioteles, and Theophrastus, if he will consent and accept the
charge, to be the guardians of my children and of Herpyllis,
and the trustees of all the property I leave behind me ; and I
desire them, when my dau^ter is old enough, to give her in
marriage to Nicanor ; but if any thing should happen to the
girl, which may God forbid, either before or after she is mar-
ried, but before she has any children, then I will that Nicanor
shall have the absolute disposal of my son, and of all other
things, in the full confidence that he will arrange them in a
manner worthy of me and of himself. Let him also he the
guardian of my daughter and son Nicoma(ihus, to act as he
pleases with respect to them, as if he were their father or
brother. But if anything should happen to Nicanor, which
may God forbid, either before he receives my daughter in
marriage, or after he is married to her^ or before he has any
children by her, then any arrangements which he may mak«
by will shall stand. But, if Theophrastus, in this case, should
choose to take my daughter in marriage, then he is to stand
exactly in the same position as Nicanor. And if not, then I
will, that my trustees, consulting with Antipater concerning
both the boy and girl, shall arrange everything respecting them,
as they shall think fit ; and that my trustees and Nicanor^
remembering both me and Herpyllis, and how well she has
behaved to me, shall take care, if she be inclined to take a
husband, that one be found for her who shall not be unworthy
of us ; and shall give her, in addition to all that has been
already given her, a talent of silver, and three maidservants
if she please to accept them, and the handmaid whom she has
186 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHEBS.
now, and the boy Pyrrhaeus. And if she likes to dwell at
Chalcis, she shall have the house which joins the garden ; but
if she likes to dwell in Stagira, then she shall have my father s
bouse. And whichever of these houses she elects to take, I
will that my executors do furnish it with all necessary furniture,
in such manner as shall seem to them and to Herpyllis to be
sufficient. And let Nicanor be the guardian of the child
Myrmex, s6 that he shall be conducted to his friends in a
manner worthy of us, with all his property which I received.
I also/will that Aubracis shall have her liberty, and that there
shall be given to her when her daughter is married, five
hundred drachmas, and the handmaid whom she now has.
And I will that there be given to Thales, besides the hand-
maiden whom she now has, who was bought for her, a
thousand drachmas and another handmaid. And to Timon, iu
addition to the money that has been given to him before for
another boy, an additional slave, or a sum of money which shall
be equivalent. I also will that Tychon shall have his liberty
when his daughter is married, and Philon, and Olympius, and
his son. Moreover, of those boys who wait upon me, I will
that none shall be sold, but my executors may use them, and
when they are grown up then they shall emancipate them if
they deserve it. I desire too, that my executors will take
under their case the statues which it has been entrusted to
Gryllion to make, that when they are made they may be
erected in their proper places ; and so too shall the statues of
Nicanor, and of Proxenus, which I was intending to give him
a commission for, and also that of the mother of Nicanor. I
wish them also to erect in its proper place the statue of
Arimnestus which is already made, tlmt it may be a memorial
of her, since she has died ^childless. I wish them also to
dedicate a statue of my mother to Ceres at Nemea, or where-
ever else they think fit. And wherever they bury me, there
I desire that they shall also place the bones of Pythias, having
taken them up from the place where they now lie, as she
herself enjoined. And I desire that Nicanor, as he has been
preserved, will perform the vow which I made on his behalf,
and dedicate some figures of animals in stone, four cubits high,
to Jupiter the saviour, and Minerva the saviour, in Stagira."
These are the provisions of his will.
X. And it is said that a great many dishes were found in
ARISTOTLE. 1B7
his house ; and that Lycon stated that he used to bathe in a
bath of warm oil, and afterwards to sell the oil. But some
saj that he used to place a leather bag of warm oil on his
stomach. And whenever he went to bed, he used to take a
brazen ball in his hand, having arranged a brazen dish below
it ; so that, when the ball fell into the dish, he might be awakened
by the noise.
XI. The following admirable apophthegms are attributed to
him.
He tvas once asked, what those who tell lies gain by it ;
** They gain this," said he, " that when they speak truth they
are not believed."
On one occasion he was blamed for giving alms to a worth-
less man, and he replied, " I did not pity the man, but his
condition,"
He was accustomed continually to say to his friends and
pupils wherever he happened to be, " That sight receives the
light from the air which surrounds it, and in like manner the
■soul receives the light from the science."
Very often, when he was inveighing against the Athenians,
he would say that they had invented both wheat and laws, but
that they used only the wheat and neglected the laws.
It was a saying of his that the roots of education were bitter,
but the fruit sweet.
Once he was asked what grew old most speedily, and he re-
plied, " Gratitude."
On another occasion the question was put to him, what
hope is? and his answer was, ** The dream of a waking man."
Diogenes once offered him a diy fig, and as he conjectured
that if he did not take it the cynic had a witticism ready pre-
pared, he accepted it, and then said that Diogenes had lost his
joke and his fig too ; and another time when he took one from
him as he offered it, he held it up as a child does, and said,
•^'O great Diogenes ; " and then he gave it to him back again.
He used to say that there were three things necessary to
education ; natural qualifications, instruction, and practice.
Having heard that he was abused by some one, he said,
** He may beat me too, if he likes, in my absence."
He used to say that beauty is the best of all recommenda-
tions, but others say that it was Diogenes who gave this de-
scription of it ; and that Aristotle called beauty, " The gift of
•n
183 Lives of eminent philosophers.
a fair appearance;** that Soontes called it *' A sbort-lived
tyranny ; *' Plato, *' The privilege of nature ; " Theophrastus,
"A silent deceit;" Theocritus, **An ivory mischief ; " Car-
neades, ^' A sovereignty which stood in need of no guards."
On one occasion he was asked how much educated men
were superior to those uneducated ; '' As. much," said he, *' as
the living are to the dead."
It was a saying of his that education was an ornament in
prosperity, and a refuge in adversity. And that those parentb *
who gave their children a good education deserved more honour
than those who merely beget them : for that the latter only
enabled their children to live, but the former gave them the
power of living vrell.
When a man boasted in his presence that he was a native
of an illustrious city, he said, " That is not what one ought to
look ait, but whether one is worthy of a great city."
He was once asked what a friend is ; and is answer was,
*' One soul abiding in two bodies."
It was a saying of his that some men were as stingy as if
they expected to live for ever, and some as extravagant as if
they expected to die immediately.
When he was asked why people like to spend a great deal
of their time with [handsome people, " That," said he, " is a
question fit for a blind man to ask."
The question was once put to him, what he had gained by
philosophy ; and the answer he made was this, " That I do
without being commanded, what others do from fear of the
laws."
He was once asked what his disciples ought to do to get on ;
and he replied, " Press on upon those who are in front of
them, and not wait for those who are behind to catch them."
A chattering fellow, who had been abusing him, said to
him, " Have not I been jeering you properly ? ** Not that 1
know of," said he, " for I have not been listening to you."
A man on one occasion reproached him for having given a
contribution to one who was not a good man (for the story
which I have mentioned before is also quoted in this way),
and his answer was, ** I gave not to the man, but to humanity."
The question was once put to him, how we ought to behave
to our frieuds; and the answer he gave, was, "As we should
wish our friends to behave to us«"
ARISTOTLE. 189
He used to define justice as "A virtue of the soul distribu-
tive of what each person deserved."
Another of his sayings was, that education was the best
viaticum for old age.
Pharorinus, in tiie second book of his Commentaries, says
that he was constantly repeating, ** The man who has friends
has no friend." And this sentiment is to be found also in the
seventh book of the Ethics.
These apophthegms then are attributed to him*
XII. He also wrote a great number of works ; and I have
thought it worth while to give a list of them, on account
of the eminence of their author in every branch of philo-
sophy. Four books on Justice ; three books on Poets ; three
books on Philosophy ; two books of The Statesman ; one on
Rhetoric, called also the Gryllus ; the Nerinthus, one ; the
Sophist, one ; the Menexenus, one ; the Erotic, one ; the
Banquet, one ; on Riches, one ; the Exhoijtation, one ; on the
Soul, one ; on Prayer, one ; on Nobility of Birth, one ; on
Pleasure, one ; the Aleiumder, or an Essay on Colonists, one ;
on Sovereignty, one ; on Education, one ; on the Good, three ;
three books on things* in the Laws of Plato ; two on Political
Constitutions ; on Economy, one ; on Friendship, one ; on
Suffering, or having Suffered, one ; on Sciences, one ; on Dis-^
cussions, two ; Solutions of Disputed Points, two ; Sophistical
Divisions, four ; on Contraries, one ; on Species and Genera,
one; on Property, one; Epicheirematic, or Argumentative
Commentaries, three ; Propositions relating to Virtue, three ;
Objections, one ; one book on things which are spoken of in
various ways, or a Preliminary Essay ; one on the Passion of
Anger ; five on Ethics ; three on Elements ; one on Science ;
one on Beginning ;* seventeen on Divisions ; on Divisible
Things, one ; two books of Questions and Answers ; two on
Motion ; one book of Propositions ; four of Contentious Pro-
positions ; one of Syllogisms ; eight of the First Analytics ;
two of the second greater Analytics ; one on Problems ; eight
on Method ; one on the Better ; one on the Idea ; Definitions
serving as a preamble to the Topics, seven ; two books more
of Syllogisms; one of Syllogisms and Definitions; one on
what is Eligible, and on what is Suitable ; the Preface to the
Topics, one; Topics relating to the Definitions, two; one
on the Passions ; one on Divisions ; one on Mathematics ;
190 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
thirteen books of Definitions ; two of Epicheiremata, or
Arguments ; one on Pleasure ; one of Propositions ; on the
Voluntary, one ; on the Honourable, one ; of Epicheirematic
or Argumentative Propositions, twenty-five books ; of Amatory
Propositions, four ; of Propositions relating to Friendship, two ;
of Propositions relating to the Soul, one ; on Politics, two ;
Political Lectures, such as that of Theophrastus, eight ; on
Just Actions, two ; two books entitled, A Collection of Arts ;
two on the Art of Rhetoric ; one on Art ; two on other Art ;
one on Method ; one, the Introduction to the Art of Theo-
dectes ; two books, being a treatise on the Art of Poetry ;
one book of Ehetorical Enthymemes on Magnitude ; one of
Divisions of Enthymemes ; on Style, two ; on Advice, one ;
on Collection, two ; on Nature, three ; on Natural Philosophy,
one ; on the Philosophy of Archytas, three ; on the Philosophy
of Speusippus and Xenocrates, one ; on things taken from the
doctrines of Tims^us and the school of Archytas, one ; on
Doctrines of Melissus, one ; on Doctrines of Alcmseon, one ;
on the Pythagoreans, one ; on the Precepts of Gorgias, one ;
on the Precepts of Xenophanes, one ; on the Precepts of
Zeno, one ; on the Pythagoreans, one ; on Animals, nine *,
on Anatomy, eight; one book, a Selection of Anatomical
Questions ; one on Compound Animals ; one on Mythological
Animals ; one on Impotence ; one on Plants ; one on Physi-
ognomy ; two on Medicine ; one on the Unit ; one on Signs
of Storms; one on Astronomy; one on Optics; one on
Motion ; one on Music ; one on Memory ; six on Doubts
connected with Homer; one on Poetry; thirty-eight of
Natural Philosophy in reference to the First Elements ; two
of Problems Resolved ; two of Encyclica, or General Know-
ledge ; one on Mechanics ; two consisting of Problems derived
from the writings of Democritus-; one on Stone ; one book of
Comparisons; twelve books of Miscellanies; fourteen books
of things explained accx)rding to their Genus ; one on Rights ;
one book, the Conquerors at the Olympic Games ; one, the
Conquerors at the Pythian Games in the Art of Music ; one,
the Pythian; one, a List of the Victors in the Pythian
Games ; one, the Victories gained at the Olympic Games ;
one on Tragedies ; one, a List of Plays ; one book of
Proverbs ; one on the Laws of Recommendations ; four books
of Laws ; one of Categories ; one on Interpretation ; a book
X ARISTOTLE. 191
containing an account of the Constitutions of a hundred and
fifty-eight cities, and also some individual democratic, oligarchic,
aristocratic, and tyranrical Constitutions ; Letters to Philip ;
Letters of the Selymbrians ; four Letters to Alexander ; nine
to Antipater ; one to Mentor ; one to Ariston ; one to
Olympias ; one to Hephaestion ; one to Themistagoras ; one
to Philoxenus ; one to Democritus ; one book of Poems,
heginning : —
Hail ! holy, sacred, dlstant-Bhooting Gk)d.
A book of Elegies which begins: —
Daiighter of all-accomplish'd mother.
The whole consisting of four hundred and forty-five thousand
two hundred and seventy lines.
XIII. These then are the books which were written by him.
And in them he expresses the following opinions : — ^that there
is in philosophy a two-fold division ; one practical, and the other
theoretical. Again, the practical is divided into ethical and
political, under which last head are comprised considerations
affecting not only the state, but also the management, of a
single house. The theoretical part, too, is subdivided into
physics and logic ; the latter forming not a single division,
turning on one special point, but being rather an instrument
for every art brought to a high degree of accuracy. And he
has laid down two separate objects as what it is conversant
about, the persuasive and the true. And he has used two
means with reference to each end ; dialectics and rhetoric, with
reference to persuasion; analytical examination and philosophy,
with reference to truth ; omitting nothing which can bear
upon discovery, or judgment, or use. Accordingly, with re-
ference to discovery, he has furnished us with topics and
works on method, which form a complete armoury of propo-
sitions, from which it is easy to provide one's self with an
<».bundance of probable arguments for every kind of question.
\nd \sith reference to judgment, he has given us the former
and posterior analytics ; and by means of the former ana-
lytics, we may arrive at a critical examination of principles ;
by means of the posterior, we may examine the conclusions
which are deduced from them. With reference to the use or
application of his rules, he has given us works on discussion,
1^2 XiIYES OF EiaNENT PHILOSOPHEBS.
on question, on disputation, on sophistical refutation, on
syllogism, and on things of that sort
He has also furnished us with a double criterion of truth.
One, on the perception of those effects, which are according
to imagination ; the other, the intelligence of those things
which are ethical, and which concern politics, and economy,
and laws« The chief good he has defined to be the exercise
of virtue in a perfect life. He used also to say, that happi-
ness was a thing made up of three kinds of goods. First of
all, the goods of the soul, which he also calls the principal
goods in respect of their power ; secondly, the goods of tiie
body, such as health, strength, beauty, and things of
that sort; thirdly, external goods, such as wealth, nobility of
birth, gloiy, and things like those. And he taught that virtue
was not sufficient of itself to confer happiness ; for that it
had need besides of the goods of the body, and of the
external goods, for that a wise man would be miserable if he
were surrounded by distress, and poverty, and circumstances
of that kind. But, on the other, hand, he said, that vice was
sufficient of itself to cause unhappiness, even if the goods of
.the body and the external goods were present in the greatest
possible degree. He also asserted that the virtues did not
reciprocally follow one another, for that it was possible for a
prudent, and just, and impartial man, to be incontinent and
intemperate ; and he said, that the wise man was not des-
titute of passions, but endowed with moderate passions.
He also used to define friendship as an equality of mutual
benevolence. And he divided it into the friendship of kindred,
and of love, and of those connected by ties of hospitality.
And he said, that love was divided into sensual and philo-
sophical love. And that the wise man would feel the influence
of love, and would occupy himself in affairs of state, and
-would marry a wife, and would live with a king. And as
there were three kinds of life, the speculative, the practical,
and the voluptuous, he preferred the speculative. He also
considered the acquisition of general knowledge serviceable to
the acquisition of virtue. As a natural philosopher, he was
the most ingenious man that ever lived in tracing effects back
to their causes, so that he cx)uld explain the principles of the
most trifling circumstances; on which account he wrote a great
many books of commentaries on physical questions.
ARISTOTLE. 193
He used to teach that God was incorporeal, as Plato also
asserted, and that his providence extends over all the heavenly
bodies ; also, that he is incapahle of motion. And that he
governs all things upon earth with reference to their sympathy
with the heavenly hodies. Another of his doctrines was, that
besides the four elements there is one other, making the fifth,
of which all the heavenly bodies are composed ; and that this
one possesses a motion peculiar to itself, for it is a circular
one. That the soul is incorporeal, being the first svnXs^tta ;
for it is the IvrBXs^sia of a physical and organic body, having
an existence in consequence of a capacity for existence. And
this is, according to him, of a twofold nature. By the word
imTJ^eia, he means something which has an incoporeal species,
either in capacity, as a figure of Mercury in wax, which has a
capacity for assuming any shape; or a statue in brass ; and so the
perfection of the Mercury or of the statue is called hnXs^sia,
with reference to its habit. But when he speaks of the 5v«-
Xg;^g/a* of a natural body, he does so because, of bodies some are
wrought by the hands, as for instance, those which are made by
artists, for instance, a tower, or a ship ; and some exist by
nature, as the bodies of plants and animals. He has also
used the term with reference to an organic body, that is to
say, with reference to something that is made, as the faculty
of sight for seeing, or the faculty of hearing for the purpose of
hearing. The capacity of having life must exist in the thing
itself. But the capacity is twofold, either in habit or in
operation. In operation, as a man, when awake, is said to have
a soul ; in habit, as the same is said of a man when asleep.
That, therefore, he may come under his definition, he has
added the word capacity.
He has also given other definitions on a great many sub-
jects, which it would be tedious to enumerate here. For he
was in every thing a man of the greatest industry and inge-
nuity, as is plain from all his works which I have lately
given a list of ; which are in number nearly four hundred, the
genuineness of which is undoubted. There are, also, a great
♦ '* IvreXIxeia, the actuality of a thing, as opposed to simple capabiliiy
or potentiality {difvafiic) ; a philosophic word invented by Aristotle. —
. . . . quite distinct from IvdtKixaa, though Cicero (Tusc. i 10,)
confounded them."—!/. ^ S,in vac
194 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHEBS.
many other works attributed to him, and a number of apoph-
thegms which he never committed to paper.
XIV. There were eight persons of the name of Aristotle.
First of all, the philosopher of whom we have been speaking ;
the second was an Athenian statesman, some of whose forensic
orations, of great elegance, are still extant ; the third was a
man who wrote a treatise on the Iliad ; the fourth, a Siciliot
orator, who wrote a reply to the Panegyric of Isocrates ; the
Mh was the man who was sumamed Myth, a friend of
iEschines, the pupil of Socrates ; the sixth was a Cyrenean,
who wrote a treatise on Poetry ; the seventh was a school-
master, who is mentioned by Aristoxenus in his Litie of Plato ;
the eighth, was an obscure grammarian, to whom a treatise on
Pleonasm is attributed.
XV. And the Stagirite had many friends, the most emi-
nent of whom was Theophrastus, whom we must proceed to
speak of.
LIFE OF THEOPHRASTUS.
I. Theophrastus was a native of Eresus. the son of Me-
lantas, a fuUer, as we are told by Athenodorus in the eighth
book of his Philosophical Conversations.
II. He was originally a pupil of Leucippus, his fellow
citizen, in his own country ; and subsequently, after having
attended the lectures of Plato, he went over to Aristotle. And
when he withdrew to Chalcis, he succeeded him as president
of his school, in the hundred and fourteenth olympiad.
III. It is also said that a slave of his, by name Pomphylus,
was a philosopher, as we are told by Myronianus of Amastra,
in the first book of Similar Historical Chapters.
IV. Theophrastus was a man of great acuteness and in-
dustry, and, as Pamphila asserts in the thirty- second book of
his Commentaries, he was the tutor of Menandar, the comic
poet. He was also a most benevolent man, and very aflfable.
V. Accordingly, Cassander received him as a friend ; and
Ptolemy sent to invite him to his court. And he was thought
so very highly of at Athens, that when Agonides ventured to
r
THEOPHRASTUS. ] 95
impeach him on a charge of impiety, he was very nearly fined
for his hardihood. ' And there thronged to his school a crowd
of disciples to the number of two thousand. In his letter to
Phanias, the Peripatetic, among other subjects he speaks of
the court of justice in the following terms : " It is not only
out of the question to find an assembly (irav^yv^ig), but it is
not easy to find even a comply {(fuvid^iov) such as one would
like ; but yet recitations produce corrections of the judgment.
And my age does not allow me to put off everything and to feel
indifference on such a subject." In this letter he speaks of
himself as one who devotes his whole leisure to learning.
And though he was of this disposition, he nevertheless went
away for a short time, both he and all the rest of the philo-
sophers, in consequence of Sophocles, the son of Amphi*
elides, having brought forward and carried a law that no one
of the philosophers should preside over a school unless the
council and the people had passed a resolution to sanction their
doing so, if they did, death was to be the penalty. But they
returned again the next year, when Philion had impeached
Sophocles for illegal conduct ; when the Athenians abrogated
his law, and fined Sophocles five talents, and voted that the
philosophers should have leave to return, that Theophrastus
might return and preside over his school as before.
VI. His name had originally been Tyrtanius, but Aristotle
changed it to Theophrastus, from the divine character of his
eloquence.*
VII. He is said also to have been very much attached to
Aristotle's son, Nicomachus, although he was his master ; at
least, this is stated by Aristippus in the fourth book of hjs
treatise on the Ancient Luxury.
VIII. It is also related that Aristotle used the same
expression about him and CaUisthenes, which Plato, as I
have previously mentioned, employed about Xenocrates and
Aristotle himseK. For he is reported to have said, since
Theophrastus was a man of extraordinary acuteness, who
could both comprehend and explain everything, and as the
other was somewhat slow in his natural character, that Theo-
phrastus required a bridle, and CaUisthenes a spur.
IX. It is said, too, that he had a garden of his own after
* From OiioQ divine, and ^pamQ diction.
o2
196 LIVES OP EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
the death of Aristotle, by the assistance of Demetrius Phale-
rius, who was an intimate friend of his.
X. The following very practical apophthegms of his are
quoted. He used to say that it was better to trust to a horse
without a bridle than to a discourse without arrangement.
And once, when a man preserved a strict silence during the
whole of a banquet, he said to him, ** If you are an ignorant
man, you are acting wisely ; but if you have had any education,
you are behaving like a fool." And a very favourite expression
of his was, that time was the most valuable thing that a man
could spend.
XI. He died when he was of a great age, having lived
eighty-five years, when he had only rested from his labours a
short time. And we have composed the following epigram
on him : —
The proverb then ib not completely false,
That wisdom's bow unbent is quickly broken ;
While Theophrastus laboured, he kept sound,
When he relaxed, he lost his strength and died.
They say that on one occasion, when dying, he was asked by
his disciples whether he had any charge to give them ; and he
replied, that he had none but that they should ** remember
that life holds out many pleasing deceits to us by the vanity
of glory ; for that when we are beginning to live, then we are
dying. There is, therefore, nothing more profitless than am-
bition. But may you all be fortunate, and either abandon
philosophy (for it is a great labour), or else cling to it dili-
gently, for then the credit of it is great ; but the vanities of
fife exceed the advantage of it. However, it is not requisite
for me now to advise you what you should do ; but do you
yourselves consider what line of conduct to adopt." And
when he had said this, as report goes, he expired. And the
'Athenians accompanied him to the grave, on foot, with the
whole population of the city, as it is related, honouring the
man greatly.
XII. But Pharorinus says, that when he was very old he
used to go about in a litter ; and that Hermippus states this,
quoting Arcesilaus, the Pitansean, and the account which he
sent to Lacydes of Cyrene.
XIII. He also left behind him a very great number of
THEOPHRASTUS. 197
works, of wbicli I have thought it proper to give a list on
account of their being full of every sort of excellence. Thejl
are as follows : —
Three books of the First Analytics ; seven of the Second
Analytics ; one book of the Analysis of Syllogisms ; one book,
an Epitome of Analytics; two books, Topics for referring
things to First Principles; one book, an Examination of
Speculative Questions about Discussions ; one on Sensations ;
one addressed to Anaxagoras ; one on the Doctrines of Anaxar
goras; one on the Doctrines of Anaximenes; one on the
Doctrines of Archelaus ; one on Salt, Nitre, and Alum ; two
on Petrifactions ; one on Indivisible Lines ; two on Hearing ;
one on Words ; one on the Differences between Virtues ; one
on Kingly Power ; one on the Education of a King ; three
on Lives ; one on Old Age ; one on the Astronomical System
of Democritus ; one on Meteorology ; one on Images or
Phantoms ; one on Juices, Complexions, and Flesh ; one on
the Description of the World ; one on Men ; one, a Collection
of the Sayings of Diogenes ; three books of Definitions ; one
treatise on Love ; another treatise on Love ; one book on
Happiness ; two books on Species ; on Epilepsy, one ; on
Enthusiasm, one ; on Empedocles, one ; eighteen books of
Epicheiremes ; three books of Objections ; one book on the
Voluntary ; two books, being .an Abridgment of Plato's Polity ;
one on the Difference of the Voices of Similar Animals ; one
on Sudden Appearances; one on Animals which Bite or
Sting ; one on such Animals as are said to be Jealous ; one
on those which live on Dry Land ; one on those which Change
their Colour ; one on those which live in Holes ; seven on
Animals in General; one on Pleasure according to the Defi-
nition of Aristotle ; seventy-four books of Propositions ; one
treatise on Hot and Cold ; one essay on Giddiness and Ver-
tigo and Sudden Dimness of Sight ; one on Perspiration ; one
on Affirmation and Denial ; the Callisthenes, or an essay on
Mourning, one ; on Labours, one ; on Motion, three ; on Stones,
one ; on Pestilences, one ; on Fainting Fits, one ; the Me-
garic Philosopher, one ; on Melancholy, one ; on Mines, two ;
on Honey, one ; a collection of the Doctrines of Metrodorus,
one ; two books on those Philosophers who have treated of
Meteorology ; on Drunkenness, one ; twenty-four books of
Laws, in alphabetical order ; ten books, being an Abridgment
198 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
of Laws ; one on Definitions ; one on Smells ; one on Wine
•und Oil; eighteen books of Primary Propositions; three
books on Lawgivers ; six books of Political Disquisitions ;
a treatise on Politicals, with reference to occasions as they
arise, four books ; four books of Political Customs ; on the
best Constitution, one ; £lTe books of a Collection of Pro-
blems ; on Proverbs, one ; on Concretion and Liquefaction,
one; on Fire, two; on Spirits, one; on Paralysis, one; on
Suffocation, one; on Aberration of Intellect, one; on the
Passions, one ; on Signs, one ; two books of Sophisms ; one
on the Solution of Syllogisms; two books of Topics; two
on Punishment; one on Hair; one on Tyranny; three
on Water ; one on Sleep and Dreams ; three on Friendship ;
two on Liberality; three on Nature; eighteen on Questions
of Natural Philosophy; two books, being an Abridgment
of Natural Philosophy; eight more books on Natural Phi-
losophy ; one treatise addressed to Natural Philosophers ;
two books on the History of Plants; eight books ou
the Causes of Plants ; five on Juices ; one on Mistaken
Pleasures ; one, Investigation of a proposition concerning the
Soul; one on Unskilfully Adduced Proofs; one on Simple
Doubts; one on Harmonics; one on Virtue; one entitled
Occasions or Contradictions ; one on Denial ; one on Opinion ;
one on the Ridiculous; two called Soirees; two books of
Divisions; one on Differences; one on Acts of Injustice;
one on Calumny; one on Praise; one on Skill; three books
of Epistles; one on Self-produced Animals; one on Selec-
tion ; one entitled the Praises of the Gods ; one on Fes-
tivals; one on Good Fortune; one on Enthymemes; one
on Inventions; one on Moral Schools; one book of Moral
Characters ; one treatise on Tumult ; one on History : one
on the Judgment Concerning Syllogisms; one on Flattery;
one on the Sea ; one essay, addressed to Cassander, Concern-
ing Kingly Power ; one on Comedy ; one on Meteors ; one on
Style ; one book called a Collection of Sayings ; one book of
Solutions ; three books on Music ; one on Metres ; the Me-
gades, one ; on Laws, one ; on Violations of Law, one : a
collection of the Sayings and Doctrines of Xenocrates, one ;
one book of Conversations ; on an Oath, one ; one of Ora-
torical Precepts ; one on Biches ; one on Poetry ; one beincj
a collection of Political, Ethical, Physical, and amatory
THEOPHRASTUS. 190
Problems ; one book of Proverbs ; one book, being a Col-
lection of General Problems ; one on Problems in Natural
Philosophy ; one on Example ; one on Proposition and Expo-
sition ; a second treatise on Poetry ; one on the Wise Men ;
one on Counsel ; one on Solecisms ; one on Ehetorical Art,
a collection of sixty-one inures of Oratorical Art ; one l)ook on
Hypocrisy ; six books of a Commentary of Aristotle or Theo-
phrastus ; sixteen books of Opinions on Natural Philosophy ;
one book, being an Abridgment of Opinions on Natural Phi-
losophy ; one on Gratitude ; one called Moral Characters ; one
on Truth and Falsehood; six on the History of Divine Things;
three on the Gods ; four on the History of Geometry ; six
books, bdng an Abridgment of the work of Aristotle on
Animals ; two books of Epicheiremes ; three books of Propo-
sitions; two on Kingly Power; one on Causes; one on De-
mocritus ; one on Calumny; one on Generation ; one on the
Intellect and Moral Character of Animals ; two on Motion ;
four on Sight; two on Definitions; one on being given in
Marriage ; one on the Greater and the Less ; one on Music ;
one on Divine Happiness ; one addressed to the Philosophers
of the Academy ; one Exhortatory Treatise ; one discussing
how a City may be best Governed ; one called Commentaries ;
one on the Crater of Mount Etna in Sicily ; one on Admitted
Facts; one on Problems in Natural Natural History; one.
What are the Different Manners of Acquiring Knowledge ;
three on Telling Lies ; one book, which is a preface to the
Topics ; one addressed to JSschylus ; six books of a History
of Astronomy ; one book of the History of Arithmetic relatii^
to Increasing Numbers; one called the Acicharus; one on
Judicial Discourses ; one on Calumny ; one volume of Letters
to Astyceron, Phanias, and Nicanor ; one book on Piety ; one
called the Evias ; one on Circumstances ; one volume entitled
Familiar Conversations ; one on the Education of Children ;
another on the same subject, discussed in a different manner ;
one on Education, called also, a treatise on Virtue, or on
Temperance ; one book of Exhortations ; one on Numbers ;
one consisting of Definitions referring to the Enunciation of
Syllogisms : one on Heaven; two on Politics; two on Nature, on
Fruits, and on Animals. And these works contain in all two
hundred and thirty-two thousand nine hundred and eight lines.
These, then, are the books which Theophrastus composed.
200 LiYES OF EMINENT PHILOBOPHEBS. '
XIV. I have also fotmd his will, which is drawn up in the
following terms :—
May things turn out well, but if anything should happen to
me, I make the following disposition of my property. I give
everything that I have in my house to Melantes and Pan-
creon, the sons of Leon. And those things which have been
given to me by Hipparchus, I wish to be disposed of in the
following manner: — First of all, I wish everything about the
Museum* and the statue of the goddesses to be made perfect,
and to be adorned in a still more beautiful manner than at
present, wherein there is room for improvement Then I
desire the statue of Aristotle to be placed in the temple, and
all the other offerings which were in the temple before. Then
I desire the colonnade which used to be near the Museum to
be rebuilt in a manner not inferior to the previous one. I
also enjoin my executors to put up the tablets on which the
maps of the earth are drawn, in the lower colonnade, and to
take eare that an altar is finished in such a manner that
nothing may be wanting to its perfectness or its beauty. I
also direct a statue of Nicomachus, of equal size, to be erected
at the same time ; and the price for making the statue has
been already paid to Praxiteles ; and he is to contribute what
is wanting for the expense. And I desire that it shall be placed
wherever it shall seem best to those who have the charge of pro-
viding for the execution of the other injunctions contained in
this will. And these are my orders respecting the temple
and the offerings. The estate which I have at Stagira, I give
to Callinus,* and all my books I bequeath to Neleus. My
garden, and my promenade, and my houses which join the
garden, I give all of them to any of the friends whose names I
set down below, who choose to hold a school in them and to
devote themselves to the study of philosophy, since it is not
possible for any one to be always travelling, but I give them
on condition that they are not to alienate ^em, and that no
one is to claim them as his own private property ; but they
are to use them in common as if they were sacred ground,
sharing them with one another in a kindred and friendly
spirit, as is reasonable and just. And those who are to have
this joint property in them are Hipparchus, Neleus, Strato, Gal-
lenus, Demotimus, Demaratus, Callisthenes, Melantes, Pan-
* This was a temple of the MuBes which he had built for a achooL
THEOPHRASTUS. 201
creon, and Nicippus. And Aristotle, the son of Metrodorus
and Pythias, shall also he entitled to a share in this property,
if he likes to join these men in the study of philosophy. And
I heg the older men to pay great attention to his education
that he may be led on to philosophy as much as possible. I
llso desire my executors to bury me in whatever part of the
garden shall appear most suitable, incurring no superfluous
expense about my funeral or monument. And, as has been
said before, after the proper honours have been paid to me,
and after provision has been made for the execution of my
will as far as relates to the temple, and the monument, and
the garden, and the promenade, then I enjoin that Pam-
phylus, who dwells in ^e garden, shall keep it and everything
else in the same condition as it has been in hitherto. And
those who are in possession of these things are to take care of
his interests. I further bequeath to Pamphylus and Threptes,
who have been some time emancipated, and who have been of
great service to me, besides all that they have previously re-
ceived from me, and all that they may have earned for them-
selves, and all that I have provided for being given them by
Hipparchus, two thousand drachmas, and I enjoin that they
shoiild have them in firm and secure possession, as I have
often said to them, and to Melantes and Pancreon, and they
have agreed to provide for this my will taking effect. I also
give them the little handmaid Somatale ; and of my slaves, I
ratify the emancipation of Melon, and Cimon, and Parmenon
which I have already given them. And I hereby give their
liberty to Manes and Callias, who have remained four years
in the garden, and have worked in it, and have conducted
themselves in an unimpeachable manner. And I direct that
my executors shall give Pamphylus as much of my household
furniture as may seem to them to be proper, and shall sell the
rest. And I give Canon to Demotimus, and Donar to Neleus.
I order Eulius to be sold, and I request Hipparchus to give
Callinus three thousand drachmas. And if I had not seen
the great service that Hipparchus has been to me in former
times, and the embarrassed state of his affairs at present, I
should have associated Melantes and Pancreon with him in
these gifts. But as I see that it would not be easy for them
to arrange to manage the property together, I have thought
it likely to be more advantageous for t^em to receive a fixed
d02 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHEBS.
sam from Hipparclius. Therefore, let Hipparchus pay to
Melantes and to Pancreon a talent a-piece; and let liim
also pay to my executors the money necessary for the expenses
which I have here set down in my will, as it shall require
to he expended. And when he has done this, then I will
that he shall he discharged of all dehts due from him to me
or to my estate. And if any profit shall accrue to him in
Chalcis, from property belonging to me, it shall be all his
own. My executors, for all the duties provided for in this
will, shall be Hipparchus, Neleus, Strato, Callinus, Demo>
timus, Gallisthenes, and Ctesarchus. And this my will is
copied out, and all the copies are sealed with the s^-ring of
me, Theophrastus ; one copy is in the hands of Hegesias the
son of Hipparchus; the witnesses thereto are Callippus of
Pallene, Philomelus of Euonymus, Lysander of Hybas, and
Philion of Alopece. Another copy is deposited with Olym-
piodorus, and the witnesses are the same. A third copy is
under the care of Adimantus, and it was conveyed to him by
Androsthenes, his son. The witnesses to that copy are Arim-
nestus the son of Cleobulus, Lysistratus of Thrasos, the son of
Phidon ; Strato of Lampsacus, the son of Arcesilaus; Thesip-
pus of Cerami, the son of Thesippus ; Dioscorides of the banks
of the Cephisus, the son of Dionysius. — This was his will.
XV. Some writers have stated that Erasistratus, the phy-
sician, was a pupil of his ; and it is yeiy likely.
LIFE OF STRATO.
I. Theophrastus was succeeded in the presidency of his
school by Strato of Lampsacus, the son of Arcesilaus, of whom
he had made mention in his will.
II. He was a man of great eminence, sumamed the Natural
Philosopher, £rom his surpassing all men in the dilligence
with wluch he applied himself to the investigation of matters
of that nature.
III. He was also the preceptor of Ptolemy Philadelphus,
and received from him, as it is said, eighty talents ; and he
STRATO. 203
began to preside over tbe school, as Apollodorns tells us in
his Chronicles, in the hundred and twenty-third olympiad,
and continued in that post for eighteen years.
IV. There are extant three books of his on Eangly Power ;
three on Justice ; three on the Gods ; three on Beginnings ;
and one on each of the subjects of Happiness, Philosophy,
Manly Courage, the Vacuum, Heaven, Spirit, Human Nature,
the Generation of Animals, Mixtures, Sleep, Dreams, Sight,
Perception, Pleasure, Colours, Diseases, Judgments, Powers,
Metallic Works, Hunger, and Dimness of Sight, Lightness
and Heaviness, Enthusiasm, Pain, Nourishment and Growth,
Animals whose Existence is Doubted, Fabulous Animals,
Causes, a Solution of Doubts, a preface to Topics ; there are,
also, treatises on Contingencies, on the Definition, on the
More and Less, on Injustice, on Former and Later, on tbe
Prior Genus, on Property, on the Future. There are, also,
two books called the Examination of Inventions ; the Genu-
ineness of the Commentaries attributed to him, is doubted.
There is a volume of Epistles, which begins thus : " Strato
wishes Arsinoe prosperity."
V. They say that he became so thin and weak, that he
died without its being perceived. And there is an epigram
of ours upon him in the following terms : —
The man was thin, believe me, from the use^
Of frequent unguents ; Strato was his name,
A citizen of LimipBacus ; he struggled long
With fell disease, and died at last unnoticed.
VL There were eight people of the name of Strato. The
first was a pupil of Isocrates; the second was the man of
whom we have been speaking ; the third was a physician, a
pupil of Erasistratus, or, as some assert, a foster-child of
his ; the fourth was an historian, who wrote a history of the
Achievements of Philip and Perses in their wars against the
Homans The sixth was an epigrammatic poet ;
the seventh was on ancient physician, as Aristotle tells us ;
the eighth was a Peripatetic philosopher, who lived in Alex-
andria.
VII. But the will, too, of this natural philosopher is extant,
and it is couched in the following language : — " If anything
happens to me, I make this disposition of my property. I
204 ^ LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
leave all my property in my hoose to Lampyrion and Arce-
silaus ; and with the money which I have at Athens, in the
first place, let my executors provide for my funeral and for all
other customary expenses ; without doing anything extravagant,
or, on the other hand, anything mean. And the following
shall he my executors, according to this my will : Olympichus,
Aristides, Inuesigenes, Hippocrates, Epicrates, Gorgylus,
Diodes, Lycon, and Athanes, And my school I leave to
Lycon, since of the others some are too old, and others too
husy. And the rest will do well, if they ratify this arrange-
ment of mine. I also hequeath to him all my hooks, except
such as we have written ourselves ; and all my furniture in
the dining-room, and the couches, and the drinking cups.
And let my executors give Epicrates five hundred drachmas,
and one of my slaves, according to the choice made by
Arcesilaus. And first of all, let Lampyrion and Arcesilaus
cancel the engagements which Daippus has entered into for
IrsBUS. And let him be acquitted of all obligation to Lampy-
rion or the heirs of Lampyrion; and let him also be dis-
charged from any bond or note of hand he may have given.
And let my executors give him five hundred drachmas of silver,
and one of my slaves, whichever Arcesilaus may approve, in
order that, as he has done me great service, and co-operated
with me in many things, he may have a competency, and be
enabled to liye decently. And I give their freedom to Dio-
phantus, and Diodes, and Abus. Simias I give to Arcesilaus.
I also give his freedom to Dromo. And when Arcesilaus
arrives, let Irseus calculate with Olympicus and Epicrates,
and the rest of my executors, the amount that has been ex-
pended on my funeral and on other customaiy expenses. And
let the money that remains, be paid over to Arcesilaus by
Olympichus, who shall give lum no trouble, as to the time or
manner of payment. And Arcesilaus shall discharge the
engagements which Strato has entered into with Olympichus
and Ausinias, which are preserved in writing in the care of
Philoreatos, the son of Tisamenus. And with respect to my
monument, let them do whatever seems good to Arcesilaus,
and Olympichus, and Lycon.
This is his will, which is still extant, as Aristo, the Ghian,
has collected and published it.
VIII. And this Strato was a man, as has been shown above.
LYCON. Q05
of deservedly great popularity ; having devoted himself to the
study of every kind of philosophy, and especially of that
hranch of it called natui^ philosophy, which is one of the
most ancient and important branches of the whole.
LIFE OF LYCON.
I. He was succeeded by Lycon, a native of the Troas, the
son of Astyanas, a man of great eloquence, and of especial
ability in the education of youth. For he used to say that
it was fit for boys to be harnessed with modesty and rivalry,
as much as for horses to be equipped with a spur and a bridle.
And his eloquence and energy in speaking is apparent, from
this instance. For he speaks of a virgin who was poor in the
following manner : — " A damsel, who, for want of a dowry,
goes beyond the seasonable age, is a heavy burden to her
&ther ; " on which acccount they say that Antigonus said with
reference to him, that the sweetness and beauty of an apple
could not be transferred to anything else, but that one might
see, in the case of this man, aJl these excellencies, in as great
perfection as on a tree ; and he said this, because he was a
surpassingly sweet speaker. On which account, some people
prefixed a r to his name.* But as a writer, he was very
unequal to his reputation. And he used to jest in a
careless way, upon those who repented that they had not
learnt when they had the. opportunity, and who now wished
that they had done so, saying, said that they were a,ccusing
themselves, showing by a prayer which could not possibly be
accomplished, their misplaced repentance for their idleness.
He used also to say, that those who deliberated without coming
to a right conclusion, erred in their calculations, like men
who investigate a correct nature by an incorrect standard, or
who look at a face in disturbed water, or a distorted mirror.
Another of his saying was, that many men go in pursuit of
the crown to be won in the forum, but few or none seek to attain
the one to be gained at the Olympic games.
II. And as he in many instances gave much advice to the
Athenians, he was of exceedingly great service to them.
* So as to make it appear connected with yXvc^Ct sweet.
206 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
III. He was also a person of great neatness in his dress,
wearing garments of an unsurpassable delicacy, as we are
told by Hermippus. He was at the same time exceedingly
devoted to the exercises of the Gymnasium, and a man who
was always in excellent condition as to his body, displaying
every quaUty of an athlete (though Antigonus of Carystus,
pretends that he was bruised about the ears and dirty) ; and in
his own country he is said to have wrestled and played at ball
at the Iliaean games.
IV. And he was exceedingly beloved by Eumenes and
Attains, who made him great presents; and, Antigonus also
tried to seduce him to his court, but was disappointed. And
he was so great an enemy to Hieronymus the Peripatetic,
that he was the only person who would not go to see him on
the anniversary festival which he used to celebrate, and which
we have mentioned in our life of Arcesilaus.
V. And he presided bver his school forty-four years, as
Strato had left it to him in his will, in the hundred and
twenty-seventh olympiad.
VI. He was also a pupil of Panthoides, the dialectician.
VII. He died when he was seventy-four years of age,
having been a great sufferer with the gout, and there is an
epigram of ours upon him :— •
Nor shall wise Lycon be forgotton, who
Died of the gout, and much I wonder at it.
For he who ne'er before could walk alone,
Went the long road to hell in a single night
VIII. There were several people of the name of Lycon.
The first was a Pythagorean; the second was this man of
whom we are speaking; the third was an epic poet; the
fourth was an epigrammatic poet.
IX. I have fallen in mih the following wiU of this philo-
sopher. " I make the following disposition of my property ;
if I am unable to vdthstand this disease :^A11 the property in
my house I leave to my brothers Astyanax and Lycon ; and
I think that they ought to pay all that I owe at Athens, and
that I may have borrowed from any one, and also all the
expenses that may be incurred for my funeral, and for other
customary solemnities. And all that I have in in the city, or
in ^gina, I give to Lycon because he bears the same name
LTCON. 207
that I do, and because he has spent the greater part of his
life with me, showing me the greatest affection, as it was fitting
that he should do, sinoe he was in the place of a son to me.
And I leave my garden walk to those of my Mends who like
to use it ; to Bulon, and Callinus, and Ariston, and Amplicon,
and Lycon, and Python, and Aristomachus, and Heracleus,
and Lycomedes, and Lycon my nephew. And I desire that
they will elect as president hun whom they think most likely
to remain attached to the pursuit of philosophy, and most
capable of holding the school together. And I entreat the
rest of my friends to acquiesce in their election, for my sake
and that of the place. And I desire that Bulon, and CaUinus,
and the rest of my friends will manage my funeral and the
burning of my body, so that my obsequies may not be either
mean or extravagant. And the property which I have in
^gina shall be divided by Lycon after my decease among the
young men there, for the purpose of anointing themselves, in
order that the memory of me and of him who honoured me,
and who showed his affection by useful presents, may be long
preserved. And let him erect a statue of me ; and as for the
place for it, I desire that Diophantus and Heraclides the son
of Demetrius, shall select that, and take care that it be suitable
for the proposed erection. With the property that I have in the
city let Lycon pay all the people of whom I have borrowed any-
thing since his departure; and let Bulon and Callinus join him
in this, and also in discharging all the expenses incurred for
my funeral, and for all oder customary solemnities, and let
him deduct the amount from the funds which I have left in
my house, and bequeathed to them both in common. Let him
also pay the physicians, Pasithemis and Medias, men who,
for their attention to me and for their skill, are very deserving
of still greater honour. And I give to the son of Callinus my
pair of Thericlean cups ; and to his wife I give my pair of
Ehodian cups, and my smooth carpet, and my double carpet,
and my curtains, and the two best pillows of all that I leave
behind me ; so that as fiEur as the compliment goes, I may be
seen not to have forgotten them. And with respect to those
who have been my servants, I make the following disposition :
— To Demetrius who has long been freed, I remit the price
of his freedom, and I further give five minsB, and a cloak, and
a tunic, that as he has a great deal of trouble about me, he
208 UYFS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
maj pass the rest of his life comfortably. To Griton, the
Ghalcedonian, I also remit the price of his freedom, and I
further give him four minsB. Micras I hereby present "with
his freedom ; and I desire Lycon to maintain him, and
instruct him for six years £rom the present time. I also give
. his freedom to Chares, and desire Lycon to maintain Mm.
And I further give him two mines, and all my books that are
published ; but those which are not published, I give to
Callinus, that he may publish them with due care. I also
give to Syrus, whom I have already emancipated, four minse,
and Menedora ; and if he owes me anything I acquit him of
the debt. And I give to Hilaras four minsB, and a double
carpet, and two pillows, and a curtain, and any couch which
he chooses to select. I also hereby emancipate the mother of
Micras, and Noemon, and Dion, and Theon, and Euphranor,
and Hermeas; and I desire that Agathon shall have his
freedom when he has served two years longer; and that
Ophelion, and Poseideon, my litter-bearers, shall have theirs
when they have waited four years more. I also give to
Demetrius, and Griton, and Syrus, a couch a piece, and
coverlets from those which I leave behind me, according
to the selection which Lycon is hereby authorised to make.
And these are to be their rewards for having performed the
duties to which they were appointed well. Gonceming my
burial, let Lycon do as he pleases, and bury me here or at
home, just as he likes ; for I am sure that he has the same
regard for propriety that I myself have. And I give all the
things herein mentioned, in the confidence that he will arrange
everything properly. The witnesses to this my will are
Gallinus of Hermione, Ariston of Geos, and Euphronius of
PflBania.**
As he then was thoroughly wise in everything relating to
education, and every branch of philosophy, he was no less
prudent and careful in the framing of his will. So that in
this respect to he deserves to be admired and imitated.
209
LIFE OF DEMETRIUS.
I. Demetrius was a native of Phalerus, and the son of
Phanostratus. He was a pupil of Theophrastus.
II. And as a leader of the people at Athens he governed
the city for ten years, and was honoured with three hundred
and sixty hrazen statues, the greater part of which were
equestrian: and some were placed in carriages or in pair-
horse chariots, and the entire numher were finished within
three hundred days, so great was the zeal with which they
were worked at. And Demetrius, the Magnesian, in his
treatise on People of the same Name, says that he began to be
the leader of the commonwealth, when Harpalus arrived in
Athens, having fled from Alexander. And he governed his
country for a long time in a most admirable manner. For he
i^grandised the city by increased revenues and by new build-
ings, although he was a person of no distinction by birth.
III. Though Pharorinus, in the first book of his Commen-
taries, asserts that he was of the family of Conon.
IV. He lived with a citizen of noble birth, named Lamia,
as his mistress, as the same author tells us in his first book.
v. Again, in his second book he tells us that Demetrius
was the slave of the debaucheries of Cleon.
VI. Didymus, in his Banquets, says that he was called
^a^tro^^a^og, or Beautiful Eyed, and Lampeto, by some
courtesan.
YII. It is said that he lost his eye-sight in Alexandria, and
recovered it again by the favour of Serapis ; on which account
be composed 3ie pseans which are sung and spoken of as his
composition to this day.
VIII. He was held in the greatest honour among the Athe-
nians, but nevertheless, he found his fame darkened by envy,
which attacks every thing ; for he was impeached by some
one on a capital charge, and as he did not appear, he was con
demned. His accusers, however, did not become masters of
his person, but expended their venom on the brass, tearing
down his statues and selling some and throwing others into
the sea, and some they cut up into chamber-pots. For even
this is stated. And one statue alone of him is preserved
p
210 LIVES OF EMIKExNT PHIL0S0PHEB6.
which is in the Acropolis. But Pharorinus in his Universal
History, says that the Athenians treated Demetrius in this
manner at the command of the king ; and they also impeached
him as guilty of illegality in his administration, as Pharorinus
says. But Hermippus says, that after the death of Cassander»
he feared the enmity of Antigonus, and on that account fled
to Ptolemy Soter ; and that he remained at his court for a
long time, and, among other pieces of advice, counselled the
king to make over t^e kingdom to his sons by Eurydice.
And as he would not agree to this measure, but gave the
crown to his son by Berenice, this latter, after the death of
his father, commanded Demetrius to be kept in prison until
he should come to some determination about him. And there
he remained in great despondency ; and while asleep on one
occasion, he was bitten by an asp in the hand, and so he died.
And he is buried in the district of Busiris, near Diospolis, and
we have written the following epigram on him : —
An asp, whose tooth of venom dire was full,
Did kUl the wise Demetrins.
The serpent beamed not light firam out his eyes, "
But dark and lurid hell.
But Heraclides, in his Epitome of the Successions of Sotion,
says that Ptolemy wished to transmit the kingdom to Phila-
delphus, and that Demetrius dissuaded him from doing so by
the argument, ** If you give it to another, you will not have it
yourself." And when Menander, the comic poet, had an
information laid against him at Athens (for this is a state-
ment which I have heard), he was very nearly convicted, for
no other reason but that he was a friend of Demetrius. He
was, however, successfully defended by Telesphorus, the son-
in-law of Demetrius.
IX. In the multitude of his writings and the number of
lines which they amount to, he exceeded nearly all the Peri-
patetics of his day, being a man of great learning and expe-
rience on every subject. And some of his writings are his-
torical, some political, some on poets, some rhetorical, some
also are speeches delivered in public assemblies or on em-
bassies ; there are also collections of ^sop's Fables, and many
other books. There are five volumes on the liegislation of
Athens; two on Citizens of Athens; two on the Manage-
DEMETRIUS. 211
ment of the People; two on Political Science; one on Laws;
two on Rhetoric ; two on Military Affairs ; two on the Iliad ;
four on the Odyssey ; one called the Ptolemy ; one on Love ;
the Phsedondas, one ; the MsBdon, one ; the Cleon, one ; the
Socrates, one ; the Artaxerxee, one ; the Homeric, one ; the
Aristides, one ; the Aristomachus, one ; the Exhortatoiy, one ;
one on the Constitution ; one on his Ten Years' Government ;
one on the lonians; one on Ambassadors; one on Good
Faith ; one on Gratitude ; one on Futurity ; one on Greatness
of Soul ; one on Marriage ; one on Opinion ; one on Peace ;
one on Laws; one on Studies; one on Opportunity; the
Dionysius, one ; the Chalcidean, one ; the Maxims of the
Athenians, one ; on Antiphones, one ; a Historic Preface, one ;
one Volume of Letters ; one called an Assembly on Oath ; one
on Old Age ; one on Justice ; one volume of jEsop's Fables ;
one of Apophthegms. His style is philosophical, combined
with the energy and impressiveness of an orator.
X« When he was told that the Athenians had thrown down
his statues, he said, "But they have not thrown down my
virtues, on account of which they erected them." He used to
say that the eyebrows were not an insignificant part of a
man, for that they were able to ovprshadow the whole life%
Another of his sayings was that it was not Plutus alone who
was blind, but Fortune also, who acted as his guide. Another,
that reason had as much influence on government, as steel
had in war. On one occasion, when he saw a debauched young
man, he said, " There is a square Mercury with a long robe,
a belly, and a beard." It was a favourite saying of his, that
m the case of men elated with pride one ought to cut some-
thing off their height, and leave them their spirit. Another
of his apophthegms was, that at home young men ought to
show respect to their parents, and in the streets to every one
whom they met, and in solitary places to themselves. Another,
that friends ought to come to others in good fortune only
when invited, but to those in distress of their own accord.
These are the chief sayings attributed to him.
XI. There were twenty persons of the name of Demetrius,
of sufficient consideration to be entitled to mention. First,
a Chalcedonian, an orator, older than Thrasymachus ; the.
second, this person of whom we are speaking ; the third was a
Byzantine, a Peripatetic philosopher ; the fourth was a man
p2
2]^ LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
surnamed Gn^hicus, a very eloquent lecturer, and also a
painter; the Mth was a native of Aspendus, a disciple of
Apollonius, of Soli ; the sixth was a native of Colatia, who wrote
twenty hooks ahout Asia and Europe; the seventh was a
Byzantine, who wrote an account of the crossing of the Gauls
from Europe into Asia, in thirteen hooks, and the History of
Antiochus and Ptolemy, and their Administration of the
Affairs of Africa, in eight more ; the eighth was a Sophist
who lived in Alexandria, and who wrote a treatise on Bheto-
rical Art ; the ninth was a native of Adramyttium, a gram-
marian, who was nick-named Ixion, in allusion to some crime
he had committed against Juno ; the tenth was a Oyrenean,
a grammarian, who was sumamed Stamnus,* a very distin-
guished man ; the eleventh was a Scepsian, a rich man of nohle
hirth, and of great eminence for learning. He it was who
advanced the fortunes of Metrodorus his feUow citizen ; the
twelfth was a grammarian of Euthyrae, who was made a citizen
of Lemnos ; tJ[ie thirteenth was a Bythinian, a son of Diphilus
the Stoic, and a disciple of Pamotus of Ehodes ; the fourteenth
was an orator of Smyrna. All of these were prose writers.
The following were poets : — The first a poet of the Old
Comedy. The second an Epic poet, who has left nothing
behind him that has come down to us, except these lines
which he wrote agcdnst some envious people : —
' They disregard a man while still alive,
Whom, when he's dead, they honour ; cities proud.
And powerful nations, have with contest fierce,
Fought o'er a tomb and unsubtantial shade.
The third was a native of Tarsus ; a writer of Satires. The
fourth was a composer of Iambics, a bitter man. The fifth
was a statuary, who is mentioned by Polemo. The sixth was
a native of Erythrae, a man who wrote on various subjects,
and who composed volumes of histories and relations.
♦ trranvoQ, means an earthenware jar for wine.
+ The foregoing account hardly does justice to Demetrius, who was
a man of real ability, and of a very different class to the generality of
those whom the ancients dignified with the title of philosophers. He
was called Phalereus, to distinguish him from his contemporary Deme-
trius Poliorcetes. His administration of the affairs of Athens was so
successful, that Cicero gives him the praise of having re-established
the sinking and almost prostrate power of the republic.
213
LIFE OF HERACLIDES.'
I. Heraclides was the son of Euthyphron, and was bom
at Heraclea, in Pontus ; he was also a wealthy man.
II. After he came to Athens, he was at first a disciple of
Speusippus, but he also attended the schools of the Pythago-
rean philosophers, and he adopted the principles of Plato ;
last of all he became a pupil of Aristotle^ as we are told by
Sotion in his book entitled the Successions.
III. He used to wear delicate garments, and was a man
of great size, so that he was nicknamed by the Athenians
Pompicus* instead of Ponticus. But he was of quiet manners
and noble aspect.
IV. There are several books extant by him, which are
exceedingly good and admirable. They are in the form of
dialogue ; some being Ethical dialogues ; three on the subject
of Justice ; one on Temperance ; five on Piety ; one on Manly
Courage ; one, and a second which is distinct from it, on
Virtue ; one on Happiness ; one on Supremacy ; one on Laws
and questions connected with them ; one on Names ; one
called Covenants ; one called The Unwilling Lover ; and the
Clinias.
(Cic. de Rep. ii 1.) As an orator, he is spoken of by the same great
authority with the highest admiration. Cicero calls him " a subtle
disputer, not vehement, but very sweet, as a pupil of Theophrastus
might be expected to be." (de Off. i 8). In another place he praises
him as possessed of great learning, and as one who *^ rather delighted
than inflamed the Athenians." (de Clav. Orat. § 37.) And says,
" that he was the first person who endeavoured to soften eloquence,
and who made it tender and gentle ; preferring to appear sweet, as
indeed he was, rather than vehement." (Ibid § 38.) In another place
he' says, ** Demetrius Phalereus the most polished of all those orators'*
(he has been mentioning Demosthenes, Hyperides, Lycurgus, ^schines,
and Dinarchus) " in my opinion." (de Orat. iL 23.) And he praises
him for not confining his learning to the schools, but for bringing it
into daily use, and employing it as one of his ordinary weapons, (de Leg.
iii. 14.) And asks who can be found besides him who excelled in
both ways, so as to be pre-eminent at the same time as a scholar, and
a governor of a state. (Ibid.) He mentions his death in the oration
for Rabirius Postumus, § 9. He appears to have died about B.G. 282.
• From irofiiri), a procession.
214 LIVES OP EMINENT PHILOSOPHEBS.
Of the physical dialogues, one is on the Mind ; one on
the Soul ; one on the Soul, and Nature and Appearances ;
one addressed to Deraocritus ; one on the Heavenly Bodies ;
one on the State of Things in the Shades below ; two on
Lives ; one on the Causes of Diseases ; one on the Good ; one
on the doctrines of Zeno ; one on the Doctrines of Metron.
Of his grammatical dialogues, there are two on the Age of
Homer and Hesiod ; two on Archilochus and Homer.
There are some on Music too ; three on Euripides and
Sophocles, and two on Music. There are also two volumes,
Solutions of Questions concerning Homer ; one on Specula-
tions ; one, the Three Tragedians ; one volume of Characters ;
one dialogue on Poetry and the Poets ; one on Conjecture ;
one on Foresight ; four, being Explanations of Heraclitus ; one.
Explanations with reference to Democritus ; two books of
Solutions of Disputed Points ; one, the Axiom ; one on
Species ; one book of Solutions ; one of Suppositions ; one
addressed to Dionysius.
Of rhetorical works, there is the dialogue on the being an
Orator, or the Protagoras.
Of historical dialogues, there are some on the Pythagoreans,
and on Inventions. Of these, some he has drawn up after the
manner of Comic writers; as, for instance, the one about
Pleasure, and that about Temperance. And some in the style
of the Tragedians, as, for instance, the dialogues on the State
of Things in the Shades below ; and one on Piety, and that
on Supremacy. And his style is a conversational and moderate
one, suited to the characters of philosophers and men occupied
in the military or political affairs conversing together. Some
of his works also are on Geometry, and on Dialectics ; and in
all of them he displays a very varied and elevated style ; and
he has great powers of persuasion.
V. He appears to have delivered his country when it was
under the yoke of tymnts, by slaying the monarch, as Deme-
trius of Magnesia tells us, in his treatise on People of the
Same Name.
VI. And he gives tihe following account of him. That he
brought up a young serpent, and kept it till it grew large ;
and that when he was at the point of death, he desired one of
bis faithful friends to hide his body, and to place the serpent
in his bed, that he might appear to have migrated to the
HEBAGLIDES. 215
Gods. And all this was done ; and while the citizens were
aU attending his funeral and extolling his > character, the
serpent hearing the noise, crept out of his clothes and threw
the multitude into confusion. And afterwards everything was
revealed, and Heraclides was seen, not as he hoped to have
heen, but as he really was. And we have written an epigram
on him which runs thus : —
You wiflh'd, 0 HeraclidePy when you died,
To leave a strange belief among mankind,
2 That you, when dead, a serpent had become.
But iJl your calculations were deceived,
For this your serpent was indeed a beast,
And you were thus discovered and pronounced another.
And Hippobotus gives the same account.
But Hermippus says that once, when a famine oppressed
the land, the people of Heraclea consulted the Pythian oracle
for the way to get rid of it ; and that Hertuslides corrupted
the ambassadors who were sent to consult the oracle, and also
the priestess, with bribes ; and that she answered that they
would obtain a deliverance from their distresses, if Heraclides,
the son of Euthyphron, was presented by them with a golden
crown, and if when he was dead they paid him honours as a
hero. Accordingly, this answer was brought back from the
oracle to Heraclea, but they who brought it got no advantage
from it ; for as soon as Heraclides had been crowned in the
theatre, he was seized with apoplexy, and the ambassadors
who had been sent to consult the oracle were stoned, and so
put to death; and at the very same moment the Pythian
priesteiss was going down to the inner shrine, and while
standing there was bitten by a serpent, and died immediately.
This then is the account given of his death.
VII. And Aristoxenus the musician says, that he composed
tragedies, and inscribed them mth the name of Thespis. And
Ghamseleon says, that he stole essays from him on the subject
of Homer and Hesiod, and published them as his own. And
Aretodorus the Epicurean reproaches him, and contradicts
all the arguments which he advanced in his treatise on
Justice. Moreover, Dionysius, called the Deserter, or as some
say Spentharus, wrote a tragedy called Parthenopseus, and
forged the name of Sophocles to it. And Heraclides was so
much deceived that he took some passages out of one of his
316 LIVES OF EMINENT PHIL0B0PHEB8.
works, and cited them as the words of Sophocles ; and Diony-
sios, when he perceived it, gave him notice of the real truth ;
and as he would not believe it, and denied it, he sent him
word to examine the first letters of the first verses of the
book, and they formed the name of Panculus, who was a friend
of Dionysius. And as Heraclides still refiised to believQ it,
and said that it was possible that such a thing might happen
by chance, Dionysius sent him back word once more, ** You
wQl find this passage too : —
" An aged monkey is not easily caught ;
He's caught indeed, but only after a tune."
And he added, " Heraclides knows nothing of letters, and has
no shame."
VIII. And there were fourteen persons of the name of
Heraclides. First, this man of whom we are speaking ; the
second was a fellow citizen of his, who composed songs for
Pyrrhic dances, and other trifies ; the third was a native of
Gumffi, who wrote a history of the Persian war in five books ;
the fourth was also a citizen of CumsB, who was an orator, and
wrote a treatise on his art ; the fifth was a native of Calatia
or Alexandria, who wrote a Succession in six books, and a
treatise on Ships, from which he was called Lembos ; the
sixth was an Alexandrian, who wrote an account of the
peculiar habits of the Persians ; the seventh was a dialectician
of Bargyleia, who wrote against Epicurus ; the eighth was a
physician, a pupil of Nisius ; the ninth was a physician of
Tarentum, a man of great skill ; the tenth was a poet, who
wrote Precepts ; the eleventh was a sculptor of Phocsea ; the
twelfth was an Epigrammatic poet of considerable beauty ; the
thirteenth was a Magnesian, who wrote a histoiy of the reign
of Mithridates ; the fourteenth was an astronomer, who wrote
a treatise on Astronomy.
217
BOOK VI.
LIFE OF ANTISTHENES.
I. Antisthenes was an Athenian, the son of Antisthenes.
And he was said not to be a legitimate Athenian ; in reference
to which he said to some one who was reproaching him with
the circumstance, " The mother of the Gods too is a Phry-
f^an ;" for he was thought to have had a Thracian mother..
On which account, as he had borne himself bravely in the battle
of Tanagra, he gave occasion to Socrates to say that the son of
two Athenians could not have been so brave. And he himself,
when disparaging the Athenians who gave themselves great
airs as having been bom out of the earth itself, said that
they were not more noble as far as that went than snails and
locusts.
II. Originally he was a pupil of Gorgias the rhetorician ;
owing to which circumstance he employs the rhetorical style
of lauguage in his Dialogues, especially in his Truth and in
his Exhortations. And Hermippus says, that he had origi-
nally intended in his address at the assembly, on account of the
Isthmian games, to attack and also to praise the Athenians,
and Thebans, and Lacedsemonians ; but that he afterwards
abandoned the design, when he saw that there were a great
many spectators come from those cities. Afterwards, he
attached himself to Socrates, and made such progress in
philosophy while with him, that he advised all his own pupils
to become his fellow pupils in the school of Socrates. And as
he lived in the Piraeus, he went up forty furlongs to the city
€very day, in order to hear Socrates, from whom he learnt the
art of enduring, and of being indifferent to external circum-
stances, and so became the original founder of the Cynic
school.
III. And he used to argue that labour was a good thing, by
adducing the examples of the great Hercules, and of Cyrus,
one of which he derived from ^e Greeks and the other from
the barbarians.
IV. He was also the first person who ever gave a definition
of discourse, saying, " Discourse is that wMch shows what
S18 LIVES OP EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
anything is or was." And he used continually to say, " I
would rather go mad than feel pleasure." And, ** One ought
to attach one's self to such women as will thank one for it."
He said once to a youth from Pontus, who was on the point
of coming to him to he his pupil, and was asking him what
things he wanted, " You want a new hook, and a new pen,
and a new tahlet ;" — meaning a new mind. And to a person
who asked him from what country he had hotter marry a
wife, he said, " If you many a handsome woman, she will he
common ;* if an ugly woman, she will he a punishment to you."
He was told once that Plato spoke ill of him, and he replied,
" It is a royal privilege to do well, and to he evil spoken of.*'
When he was heing initiated into the mysteries of Orpheus,
and the priest said that those who were initiated enjoyed
many good things in the shades below, " Why, then," said he
" do not you die ?' Being once reproached as not being the
son of two free citizens, he said, " And I am not the son of
two people skilled in wrestling ; nevertheless, I am a skilful
wrestler." On one occasion he was asked why he had but few
disciples, and said, " Because I drove them away with a silver
rod." When he was asked why he reproved his pupils
with bitter language, he said, "Physicians too use severe
remedies for their patients.** Once he saw an adulterer run-
ning away, and said, ** 0 unhappy man ! how much danger
could you have avoided for one obol !" He used to say, as
Hecaton tells us in his Apophthegms, " That it was better to
fall among crows,t than among flatterers ; for that they only
devour the dead, but the others devour the living." When
he was asked what was the most happy event that could take
place in human life, he said, " To die while prosperous."
On one occasion one of his friends was lamenting to him
that he had lost his memoranda, and he said to him, " You
ought to have written them on your mind, and not on paper."
A favourite saying of his was, " That envious people were
devoured by their own disposition, just as iron is by rust.'*
Another was, " That those who wish to be immortal ought to
live piously and justly." He used to say too, ** That cities
* There is a play on the similarity of the two Bounds, vocvi), common,
and irotviy, punishment.
t The Qroek is, Iq K6paKae, whioh was a proverb for utter destruc-
tion.
AKTISTHENES. 319
were ruined when, they were imahle to distinguish worthless
citizens from virtuous ones/*
On one occasion he was being praised by some wicked men,
and said, *' I am sadly afraid that I must have done some wicked
thing." One of his favourite sayings was, " That the fellow-
ship of brothers of one. mind was stronger than any fortified
city." He used to say, " That those things were the best for
a man to take on a journey, which would float with him if he
were shipwrecked." He was once reproached for being
intimate with wicked men, and said, " Physicians also live
with those who are sick ; and yet they do not catch fevers."
He used to say, " that it was an absurd thing to clean a corn-
field of tares, and in war to get rid of bad soldiers, and yet not
to rid one's self in a city of the wicked citizens." "When he
was asked what advantage he had ever derived from philo-
sophy, he replied, '* The advantage of being able to converse
with myself." At a drinking party, a man once said to him,
" Give us a song," and he replied, " Bo you play us a tune
on the flute." When Diogenes asked him for a tunic, he
bade him fold his cloak. He was asked on one occasion what
learning was the most necessary, and he replied, " To unlearn
one's bad habits." And he used to exhort those who found
themselves ill spoken of, to endure it more than they would
any one's throwing stones at them. He used to laugh at Plato
as conceited ; accordingly, once when there was a fine proces-
sion, seeing a horse neighing, he said to Plato, *' I think you
too would be a very frisky horse :" and he said this all the
more, because Plato kept continually praising the horse. At
another time, he had gone to see him when he was ill, and
when he saw there a dish in which Plato had been sick, he
said, " I see your bile there, but I do not see your conceit."
He used to advise the Athenians to pass a vote that asses
were horses ; and, as they thought that irrational, he said,
" Why, those whom you make generals have never learnt to be
really generals, they have only been voted such.*
A man said to him one day, ** Many people praise you."
" Why, what evil," said he, " have I done ?" When he turned
the rent in his cloak outside, Socrates seeing it, said to him,
"I see your vanity through the hole in your cloak." On
another occasion, the question was put to him by some one,
as Phanias relates, in his treatise on the Philosphers of the
2:20 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHEBS/
Socratic school, what a man coald do to show himself an
honourable and a virtuous man; and he replied, **If you
atttend to those who understand the subject, and learn from
them that you ought to shun the bad habits which you have.**
Some one was praising luxury in his hearing, and he said,
*' May the children of my enemies be luxurious.** Seeing a
young man place himself in a carefully studied attitude
before a modeller, he said, "Tell me, if the brass could speak,
on what would it pride itself?** And when the young man
replied, "On its beauty." "Are you not then,** said he,
" ashamed to rejoice in the same thing as an inanimate piece
of brass?'' A young man from Pontus once promised to
recollect him, if a vessel of salt fish arrived ; and so he took
him with him, and also an empty bag, and went to a woman
who sold meal, and filled his sack and went away ; and when
the woman asked him to pay for it, he said, "The young man
will pay you, when the vessel of salt fish comes home."
He it was who appears to have been the cause of Anytus*s
banishment, and of Meletus's death. For having met with
some young men of Pontus, who had come to Athens, on
account of the reputation of Socrates, he took them to
Anytus, telling them, that in moral philosophy he was
wiser than Socrates ; and they who stood by were indignant
at this, and drove him away. And whenever he saw a
woman beautifully adorned, he would go off to her house,
and desire her husband to bring forth his horse and his arms ;
and then if he had such things, he would give him leave to
indulge in luxury, for that he had the means of defending
himself; but if he had them not, then he would bid him strip
Ms wife of her ornaments.
V. And the doctrines he adopted were these. He used to
insist that virtue was a thing which might be taught ; also,
that the nobly bom and virtuously disposed, were the same
people ; for that virtue was of itself sufficient for happiness,
and was in need of nothing, except the strength of Socrates.
He also looked upon virtue as a species of work, not wanting
many arguments, or much instruction ; and he taught that
the wise man was sufficient for himself ; for that everything
that belonged to any one else belonged to him. He con-
sidered obscurity of fame a good thing, and equally good with
labour. And he used to say that the wise man would regu-
ANTISTHENES. 221
late his conduct as a citizen, not according to the estahlished
laws of the state, but according to the law of virtue. And
that he would marry for the sake of having children, selecting
the most beautiful woman for his wife. And that he would
love her; for that the wise man alone knew what objects
deserved love;
Diodes also attributes the following apophthegms to him.
To the wise man, nothing is strange and nothing remote.
The virtuous man is worthy to be loved. Good men are
friends. It is right to make the brave and just one's allies.
Virtue is a weapon of which a man cannot be deprived. It
is better to fight with a few good men against all the wicked,
than with many wicked men against a few good men. One
should attend to one's enemies, for they are the first persons
to detect one's . errors. One should consider a just man as
of more value than a relation. Virtue is the same in a man
as in a woman. What is good is honourable, and what is
bad is disgraceful. Think everything that is wicked, foreign.
Prudence is the safest fortification; for it can neither ^1
to pieces nor be betrayed. One must prepare one's self a
fortress in one*s own impregnable thoughts.
VI. He used to lecture in the Gymnasium, called Cyno-
sarges, not far from the gates ; and some people say that it
is from that place that the sect got the name of Cynics.
And he himself was called Haplocyon (downright dog).
VII. He was the first person to set tiie fashion of doubling
his cloak, as Diodes says, and he wore no other garment.
And he used to carry a stick and a wallet ; but Neantiies says
that he was the first person who wore a cloak without
folding it. But Sosicrates; in the third book of his Succes-
sions, says thiEit Diodorus, of Aspendos, let his beard grow,
and used to cany a stick and a wallet.
VIII. He is the only one of all the pupils of Socrates,
whom Theopompus praises and speaks of as clever, and able
to persuade whomsoever he pleased by the sweetness of his
conversation. And this is plain, both fi-om his own writings,
and from the Banquet of Xenophon. He appears to have
been the founder of the more manly Stoic school ; on which
account Athenaeus, the epigrammatist, speaks thus of them :—
0 ye, who learned are in Stoic fables,
Te who consign the wisest of all doctrines
222 LIYES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
To your most sacred books ; yon say that virtue
Is tiie sole good ; for that alone can saye
The life of man, and strongly fenced cities.
But if some fancy pleasure their best aim,
One of the Muses 'tis who has convinc'd them.
He was the original cause of the apathy of Diogenes, and
the temperance of Grates, and the patience of Zeno, having
himself, as it were, laid the foundations of the city which they
afterwards built. And Xenophon says, that in his conver-
sation and society, he was the most delightful of men, and
in every respect the most temperate.
IX. There are ten volumes of his writings extant. The first
volume is that in which there is the essay on Style, or on Figures
of Speech; the Ajax, or speech of Ajax; the Defence, of Orestes
or the treatise on Lawyers; the Isographe, or the Lysias
and Isocrates ; the reply to the work of Isocrates, entitled
the Absence of Witnesses. The second volume is that in
which we have the treatise on the Nature of Animals ; on
the Pro-creation of Children, or on Marriage, an essay of an
amatory character ; on the Sophists, an essay of a physiogno-
mical character ; on Justice and Manly Virtue, being three
essays of an hortatory character ; two treatises on Theognis.
The third volume contains a treatise on the Good ; on Manly
Courage ; on Law, or Political Constitutions ; on Law, or
what is Honourable and Just; on Freedom and Slavery;
on Good Faith; on a Guardian, or on Persuasion; on Victory,
an economical essay. The fourth volume contains the Cyrus ;
the Greater Heracles, or a treatise on Strength. The fifth
volume contains the Cyrus, or a treatise on Kingly Power ;
the Aspasia.
The sixth volume is that in which there is the treatise
Truth; another (a disputatious one) concerning Arguing;
the Sathon, or on Contradiction, in three parts ; and an
essay on Dialect. The seventh contains a treatise on Educa-
tion, or Names, in five books ; one on the Use of Names, or
the Contentious Man ; one on Questions and Answers ; one
on Opinion and Knowledge, in four books; one on Dying;
one on Life and Death ; one on those who are in the Shades
below ; one on Nature, in two books ; two books of Questions
in Natural Philosophy ; one essay, called Opinions on the
Contentious Man; one book of Problems, on the subject of
ANTISTHENES. . 2i2*S
Learning. The eighth volume is that in which we find a
treatise on Music ; one ou Interpreters ; one on Homer ; one
on Injustice and Impiety ; one on Galchas ; one on a Spy ;
one on Pleasure. The ninth book contains an essay on the
Odyssey ; one on the Magic Wand ; the Minerva, or an essay
on Telemachus ; an essay on Helen and Penelope ; one on
Proteus ; the Cyclops, being an essay on Ulysses ; an essay
on the Use of Wine, or on Drunkenness, or on the Cyclops; one
on Circe ; one on Amphiaraus ; one on Ulysses and Penelope,
and also on Ulysses' Dog. The tenth volume is occupied by
the Heracles, or Medas; the Hercules, or an Essay on
Prudence or Strength ; the Lord or the Lover ; the Lord or
the Spies ; the Menexenus, or an essay on Governing ; the
Alcibiades ; the Archelaus, or an essay on Kingly Power.
These then are the names of his works. And Timon,
rebuking him because of their great number, called him a
universal chatterer.
X. He died of some disease ; and while he was ill Diogenes
came to visit him, and said to him, '' Have you no need of a
friend ?" Once too he came to see him with a sword in his
hand ; and when Antisthenes said, " Who can deliver me
from this suffering?" he, pointing to the sword, said, "This
can ;** But he rejoined, " I said from suffering,; but not from
life ;'* for he seemed to bear his disease the more calmly
from his love of life. And there is an epigram on him written
by ourselves, which runs thus : —
In life you were a bitter dog, Antisthenes,
Bom to bite people's minds with sayings sharp,
Not with your actual teeth. Now you are slain
By fell consumption, passers by may say,
Why should he not j one wants a guide to Hell,
There were also three other people of the name of
Antisthenes. One, a disciple of Heraclitus ; the second, an
Ephesian ; the third, a historian of Rhodes. And since we
have spoken of those who proceeded from the school of
Aristippus and Phsedon, we may now go on to the Cynics
and Stoics, who derived their origin from Antisthenes. And
we vdll take them in the following order.
.224 LIVES OF EMHTEST PHILOSOPHERS.
LIFE OF DIOGENES.
I. Diogenes was a native of Sinope, the son of Tresius, a
money-changer. And Diocles says that he was forced to
flee from his native city, as his father kept the public bank
there, and had adulterated the coinage. But Eubulides, in his
essay on Diogenes, says, that it was Diogenes himself who
did this, and that he was banished with his father. And,
indeed, he himself, in his Perdalus, says of himself that he
had adulterated the public money. Others say that he was one
of the curators, and was persuaded by the artisans employed,
and that he went to Delphi, or else to the oracle at Delos,
and there consulted Apollo as to whether he should do what
people were trying to persuade him to do ; and that, as the
God gave him permission to do so, Diogenes, not comprehend-
ing that the God meant that he might change the political
customs* of his country if he could, adulterated the coinage ;
and being detected, was banished, as some people say, but as
other accounts have it, took the alarm and fled away of his own
accord. Some again, say that he adulterated the money which
he had received from his father ; and that his father was
thrown into prison and died there ; but that Diogenes escaped
and went to Delphi, and asked, not whether he might tamper
with the coinage, but what he could do to become very
celebrated, and that in consequence he received the oracular
answer which I have mentioned.
II. And when he came to Athens he attached himself to
Antistheues ; but as he repelled him, because he admitted no
one ; he at last forced his way to him by his pertinacity. And
once, when he raised his stick at him, he put his head under
it, and said, " Strike, for you will not find any stick hard
enough to drive me away as long as you continue to speak."
And from this time forth he was one of his pupils ; and being
an exile, he naturally betook himself to a simple mode of life.
III. And when, as Theopbrastus tells us, in his Megaric
Philosopher, he saw a mouse running about and not seeking
* The passage is not free from difficulty ; but the thing which misled
Diogenes appears to have been that vofutrfia, the word here used, meant
both " a coin, or coinage," and '* a custom."
BTOOENES. 225
for a bed, nor taking care to keep in the dark, nor looking for
any of those things which appear enjoyable to such an animal,
he found a remedy for his own poverty. He waB> according to
the account of some people, the first person who doubled up
his cloak out of necessity, and who slept in it I and who carried
a wallet, in which he kept his food ; and who used whatever
place was near for all sorts of purposes^ eating, and sleeping*
and conversing in it. In reference to which habit he used to
say^ pointing to the Colonnade of Jupiter» and to the Public
Magazine, *' that the Athenians had built him places to live
in." Being attacked with illness, he supported himself with
a staff; and after that he carried it continually, not indeed in
the city, but whenever he was walking in the roads, together
with his wallet, as Olympiodorus, the chief man of the
Athenians tells us ; and Polymeter, the orator, and Lysanias,
the son of ^schorion, tell the same story.
When he had written to some one to look out and get
ready a small house for him, as he delayed to do it, he took a
cask which he found in the Temple of Cybele, for his house,
as he himself tells us in his letters. And during the summer
he used to roll himself in the warm sand, but in winter he
would embrace statues all covered with snow, practising him-
self, on every occasion, to endure anything*
IV. He was very violent in expressing his haughty disdain
of others. He said that the tf%oX4 (school) of EucUdes was
XoM (gall)- And he used to call Plato's diar^/jS^ (discussions)
xarar^tBii (disguise). It was also a saying of his that the
Dionysian games were a great marvel to fools ; and that the
demagogues were the ministers of the multitude. He used
likewise to say, *' that when in the course of his life he beheld
pilots, and physicians* and philosophers, he thought man the
wisest of all animals ; but when again he beheld interpreters
of dreams, and soothsayers, and those who listened to them,
and men puffed up mih glory or riches, then he thought
that there was not a more foolish animal than man." Another
of his sayings was, " that he thought a man ought oftener to
provide himself with a reason than with a halter.'* On one
occasion, when he noticed Plato at a very costly entertainment
tasting some olives, he said, " 0 you wise man ! why, after
having sailed to Sicily for the sake of such a feast, do you not
now enjoy what you have before you ?* And Plato replied,
Q
i
226 LIVES OF EMINEITT PHIL060PHEBS. ''
" By the Gods, Diogenes, while I was there I ate olives and
all such things a great deaL" Diogenes rejoined, " What then
did you want to sail to Syracuse for ? Did not Attica at that
time produce any olives ?*' But Phavorinus, in his Universal
History, tells this story of Aristippus. At another time he
was eating dried figs, when Plato met him, and he said to him,
" You may have a share of these ;'* and as he took some and
ate them, he said, ** I said that you might have a share of
them, not that you might eat them all.*' On one occasion
Plato had invited some friends who had come to him from
Dionysius to a hanquet, and Diogenes trampled on his carpets,
and said, " Thus I trample on the . empty pride of Plato ;**
and Plato made him answer, " How much arrogcmce are you
displaying, O Diogenes ! when you think that you are not
arrogant at all." But, as others tell the story, Diogenes said,
*'Thu3 I trample on the pride of Plato;" and that Plato
rejoined, •* With quite as much pride yourself, 0 Diogenes."
Sotion too, in his fourth hook, states, that the Cynic made the
following speech to Plato : Diogenes once asked him for some
wine, and then for some dried figs ; so he sent him an entire
jar full ; and Diogenes said to him, " Will you, if you are
asked how many two and two make, answer twenty ? In this
way, you neither give with any reference to what you are asked
for, nor do you answer with reference to the question put to
you.*' He used also to ridicule him as an interminable talker.
When he was asked where in Greece he saw virtuous men ;
" Men," said he, " nowhere ; but I see good boys in LacedaB-
mon." On one occasion, when no one came to listen to him
while he was discoursing seriously, he began to whistle. And
then when people flocked round him, he reproached them for
coming with eagerness to folly, but being lazy and indiffer-
ent about good things. One of his frequent sayings was,
'* That men contended with one another in punching and
kicking, but that no one showed any emulation in the
pursuit of virtue." He used to express his astonishment at the
grammarians for being desirous to learn everything about the
misfortunes of Ulysses, and being ignorant of their own. He
used also to say, " That the musicians fitted the strings to the
lyre properly, but left all the habits of their soul ill-arranged."
And, *' That mathematicians kept their eyes fixed on the sun
and moon, and overlooked what was under their feet." ** Tlj^t
DIOGENES. 227
orators were anxious to speak jusUj, but not at all about
acting so." Also, "That misers blamed money, but were
preposterously fond of it" He often condemned those who
praise the just for being superior to money, but who at the
same time are eager themselves for great riches. He was also
very indignant at seeing men sacrifice to the Gods to procure
good health, and yet at the sacrifice eating in a manner
injurious to health. He often expressed his surprise at slaves,
who, seeing their masters eating in a gluttonous manner, still
do not themselves lay hands on any of the eatables. He
would frequently praise those who were about to marry, and
yet did not marry ; or who were about to take a voyage, and
yet did not take a voyage ; or who were about to engage in
affiurs of state, and did not do so; and those who were
about to rear children, yet did not rear any ; and those who
were preparing to take up their abode with princes, and
yet did not take it up. One of his sayings was, ** That one
ought to hold out one's hand to a friend without closing the
fingers."
Hermippus, in his Sale of Diogenes, says that he was
taken prisoner and put up to be sold, and asked what he
could do ; and he answered, " Govern men." And so he
bade the crier " give notice that if any one wants to purchase
a master, there is one here for him.'* When he was ordered
not to sit down ; ** It makes no difference,'* said he, ** for fish
are sold, be where they may." He used to say, that he
wondered at men alwa}'s ringing a dish or jar before buying
it, ,but being content to judge of a man by his look alone.
When Xeniades bought him, he said to him that he ought to
obey him even though he was his slave ; for that a physician
or a pilot would find men to obey them even though they
might be slaves.
y. And Eubulus says, in his essay entitled. The Sale of
Diogenes, that he taught the children of Xeniades, after
their other lessons, to ride, and shoot, and sling, and dart. And
then in the Gymnasium he did not permit the trainer to exer-
cise them after the fashion of athletes, but exercised them him-
self to just the degree sufficient to give them a good colour and
good health. And the boys retained in their memory many
sentences of poets and prose writers, and of Diogenes lumself ;
and he used to give them a concise statement of everything
q2
228 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
in order to strengthen their memory ; and at home he used to
teach them to wait upon themsehes, contenting themselves
with plain food, and drinking water. And he accustomed
them to cut their hair close, and to eschew ornament, and to
go without tunics or shoes, and to keep silent, looking at
nothing except themselves as they walked along. He used,
also to take them out hunting ; and they paid the greatest
attention and respect to Diogenes himself, and spoke well of
him to their parents.
VI. And the same author affirms, that he grew old in the
household of Xeniades^ and that when he died he was huried
by his sons. And that while he was living with him,
Xeniades once asked him how he should bury him ;' and he
said, '* On my face ;" and when he was asked why, he said,
•• Because, in a little while, everything will be tumfed upside
down." And he. said this because the Macedonians were
already attaining power, and becoming a mighty people from
having been vety inconsiderable. Once, when a man had
conducted him into a magnificent house, and had told him
that he must not spit, after hawking a little, he spit in his
face, saying that he could not find a worse place. But some
' t^ll this story of Aristippus. Once, he called out, ** Holloa,
men." And when some people gathered round him in con-
sequence, he drove them away with his stick, saying, " I called
men, and not dregs." This anecdote I have derived "from
Hecaton, in the first book of his Apophthegms. They also
relate that Alexander said that if he had not been Alexander,
he should have liked to be Diogenes. He used to call
dvavfl^oi (cripples), not those who were dumb and blind, but
those who had no wallet (^^fa). On one occasion he went
half shaved into an entertainment of young men, as Metrocles
tells us in his Apophthegms, and so was beaten by them. And
afterwards he wrote the names of all those who had beaten
him, on a white tablet* and went about with the tablet round
his neck, so as to expose them to insult, as they were
generally condemned and reproached for their conduct.
He used to say that he was the hound of tiiose who were
praised ; but that none of those who praised them dared to
go out hunting with him. A man once said to him, " I
conquered men at the Pythian games :" on which he said, " I
conquer men, but you only conquer slaves." When some
BIOGBMES. 229
people said to him, '* You axe aa old man, and should rest for
the remainder of your life ;" " Why so?" replied he, " suppose
I had run a long distance, ought I to stop when I was near
the end, and not rather press on? " Once, when he was in-
vited to a hanquet, he said that he would not come : for that the
day before no one had thanked him for coming. He used to
go bare foot through the snow, and to do a number of other
things which have been already mentioned. Once he at-
tempted to eat raw meat, but he could not digest it. On one
occasion he found Demosthenes, the orator, dining in an inn ;
and as he was slipping away, he said to him, " You will now
be ever so much more in an inn."* Once, when some strangers
wished to see Demosthenes, he stretched out his middle
finger, and said, '* This is the great demagogue of the Athenian
people." When some one had dropped a loaf, and was
ashamed to pick it up again, he, wishing to give him a lesson,
tied a cord round the neck of a bottle and dragged it all
through the Ceramicus. He used to say, that he imitated
the teachers of choruses, for that they spoke too loud, in order
that the rest might catch the proper tone. Another of his
sayings, was that most men were within a finger's breadth of
being mad. If, then, any one were to walk fidong, stretching
out his middle finger, he will seem to be mad ; but if he puts
out his fore finger, he will not be thought so. Another of
his sayings was, that things of great value were often sold for
nothing, and vice versa. Accordingly, that a statue would
fetch three thousand drachmas, and a bushel of meal only
two obols ; and when Xeniades had bought him, he said to
him, " Come, do what you are ordered to." And when he
said —
" The streams of sacred rivers now
Run backwards to their source 1"
" Suppose," rejoined Diogenes, ** you had been sick, and
had bought a physician, could you refuse to be guided by
him, and tell him —
" The streams of saered rivers now
Run backwards to their source T
Once a man came to him, and wished to study philosophy
* This line is from Euripides, Medea, 411.
230 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
as his pupil ; and be gave bim a saperda * and made bim
foUow bim. And as be from sbame threw it away and
departed, be soon afterwards met bim and, laughing, said to
bim, " A saperda has dissolved jour friendship for me.*' But
Diocles tells this story in the following manner ; that when
some one said to him, *' Give me a commission, Diogenes," be
carried bim off, and gave bim a halfpenny worth of cheese to
cany. And as be refused to carry it, ** See,** said Diogenes,
" a halfpenny worth of cheese has broken off our friendship.*'
On one occasion he saw a child drinking out of its bands,
and so he threw away the cup which belonged to his wallet,
saying, " That cbDd has beaten me in simphcity.'* He also
threw away bis spoon, after seeing a boy, when be bad broken
bis vessel, take up his lentils with a crust of bread. And he
used to ai^e thus, — " Everything belongs to the gods ; and
wise men are the friends of the gods. All things are in
common among friends ; therefore everything belongs to wise
men.*' Once be saw a woman falling down before the Gods in
an unbecoming attitude ; be, wishing to cure her of her super-
stition, as Zoilus of Perga tells us, came up to her, and said,
** Are you not afraid, O woman, to be in such an indecent atti-
tude, when some God maybe behind you, for every plac^ is
full of him?" He consecrated a man to i£sculapius, who was to
run up and beat all these who prostrated themselves with their
faces to the ground ; and be was in the habit of saying that
the tragic curse bad come upon him, for that be was —
HouseleflB and citilesn, a piteous exile
From hiB dear native land ; a wandering beggar,
Scraping a pittance poor firom day to day.
And another of his sayings was that be opposed confidence
to fortune, nature to law, and reason to suffering. Once,
while be was sitting in the sun in the Craneum, Alexander
was standing by, and said to him, "Ask any favour you choose
of me.** And be replied, " Cease to shade me from the sun."
On one occasion a man was reading some long passages, and
when he came to the end of the book and showed that there
was nothing more written, " Be of good cheer, my friends,"
exclaimed Diogenes, '* I see land." A man once proved to
* The saperda was the ooraciniu (a kind of fish) when salted.
DIOGENES. 231
him syllogistically that he had horns, so he put his hand to
his for^ead and said, " I do not see them." And in a
similar manner he replied to one who had been asserting that
there was no such thing as motion, by getting up and walking
away. When a man was talking about the heavenly bodies
and meteors, " Pray how many days," said he to him, ** is it
since you came down from heaven ?'*
A profligate eunuch had written on his house, " Let no evil
thing enter in." ** Where," said Diogenes, "is the master of
the house going?'* After having anointed his feet with per-
fume, he said that the ointment from his head mounted up
to heaven, and that from his feet up to his nose. When the
Athenians entreated him to be initiated in the Eleusinian
mysteries, and said that in the shades below the initiated had
the best seats ; " It will," he replied, " be an absurd thing if
^gesilaus and Epaminondas are to live in the mud, and
some miserable wretches, who have been initiated, are to be in
the islands of the blest'* Some mice crept up to his table,
and he said, " See, even Diogenes maintains his favouritei^'*
Once, when he was leaving the bath, and a man asked him
whether many men were bathing; he said, ** No ;** but when a
number of people came out, he confessed that there were a
great many. When Plato called him a dog, he said, " Un-
doubtedly, for I have come back to those who sold me."
Plato defined man thus : " Man is a two-footed, featherless
animal," and was much praised for the definition; so
Diogenes plucked a cock and brought it into his school, and "^
said, '* This is Plato*s man.** On which account this addition
was made to the definition, " With broad flat nails.*' A man
once asked him what was the proper time for supper, and he
made answer, " If you are a rich man, whenever you please ;
^nd if you are a poor man, whenever you can." When he
was at Megara he saw some sheep carefully covered over with
skins, and the children running about naked; and so he
said, " It is better at Megara to be a man*s ram, than his son.'*
A man once struck him with a beam, and then said, " Take
care." "What,** said he, "are you going to strike me
again?** He used to say that the demagogues were the ser-
vants of the people ; and garlands the blossoms of glory.
Having lighted a candle in the day time, he said, " I am
looking for a man.*' On one occasion he stood under a foun-
232 LIVES OF EMINENT FHILOSOPHEBa
tain, and as the bystandeiB were pitying him, Plato, who was
present, said to them, '* If you wish really to show your pity for
him, come away ;" intimating that he was only acting thus oat
of a desire for notoriety. Once, when a man had struck him
with his fist, he said," *' O Hercules, what a strange thing that
I should be walking about with a helmet on without know-
ing it ! "
When Midias struck him with his fist and said, '* There are
three thousand drachmas for you ;" the next day Diogenes took
the cestus of a boxer and beat him soundly, and said, '* There
are three thousand drachmas for you."* When Lysias, the
drug-seller, asked him whether he thought that there were
any Gods : ** How," said he, " can I help thinking so, when I
consider you to be hated by them? " but some attribute this
reply to Theodoras. Once he saw a man purifying himself
by washing, and said to him, " Oh, wretched man, do not you
know that as you cannot wash away blunders in grammar by
purification, so, too, you can no more efface the errors of a life
in that same manner ? "
He used to say that men were wrong for complaining of
fortune ; for that they ask of the Gods what appear to be good
things, not what are really so. And to those who were
alarmed at dreams he said, that they did not regard what they
do while they are awake, but make a great fuss about what
they fancy they see while they are asleep. Once, at the
Olympic games, when the herald proclaimed, ** Dioxippus is
the conqueror of men;*' he said, "He is the conqueior of
slaves, I am the conqueror of men.*'
He was greatly beloved by the Athenians; accordingly,
when a youth had broken his cask they beat him, and gave
Diogenes another. And Dionysius, the Stoic, says that after
the battle of OhsBronea he was taken prisoner and brought
to Philip ; and being asked who he was, replied, ** A spy, to
spy upon your insatiability." And Philip marvelled at him
and let him go. Once, when Alexander had sent a letter to
Athens to Animator, by the hands of^a man named Athlias,
he, being present, said, '* Athlias fix>m Athlius, by means of
* Thia is probably an allusion to a proBecution instituted by Demos-
thenes against Midias, which was afterwards compromised by Midias
paying Demosthenes thirty minss, or three thousand drachme. See
Dem. Or. cont- Midias.
DIOGENES. 1283
Athlias to Athlius.* When Perdiccas threatened that he
would put him to death if he did not come to him, he replied,
"That is nothing strange, for a scorpion or a tarantula could
do as much : you had better threaten me that, if I kept away,
you should be very happy." He used constantly to repeat
with emphasis that an easy life had been given to man by
the Gods, but that it had been overlaid by their seeking for
honey, cheese-cakes, and unguents, and things of that sort
On which account he said to a man, who had his shoes put on
by his servant, *^You are not thoroughly happy, unless he
also wipes your nose for you ; and he will do this, if you are
crippled in your hands." On one occasion, when he had seen
the hieromnemones t leading off one of the stewards who had
stolen a goblet, he said, *' The great thieves are carrying off
the little thief." At another time, seeing a young man throw
ing stones at a cross, he said, " Well done, you wHl be sure to
reach the mark." Once, too, some boys got round him and
said, *' We are taking care that you do not bite us ;" but he said,
*' Be of good cheer, my boys, a dog does not eat beef.'' He
saw a man giving himself airs because he was clad in a lion's
skin, and said«to him, *' Do not go on disgracing the garb of
nature." When people were speaking of the happiness of
Galisthenes, and saying what splendid treatment he received
from Alexander, he replied, " The man then is wretched, for
he is forced to breakfast and dine whenever Alexander chooses."
When he was in want of money, he said that he reclaimed it
from his Mends and did not beg for it.
On one occasion he was working with his hands in the
market-place, and said, " I wish I could rub my stomach in
the same way, and so avoid hunger." When he saw a young
man going with some satraps to supper, he dragged him away
and led him off to his relations, and bade them take care of
him. He was once addressed by a youth beautifully adorned »
who asked him some question ; and he refused to give him
any answer, till he satisfied him whether he was a man or a
woman. And on one occasion, when a youth was playing the
* This is a pun upoA the similarity of Athlias's name to the Qreek
adjective dO^toc, wMoh signifies nkiserable.
f The Upo/ivfifiovtc were the sacred secretaries or recorders sent by
each Amphictyonio state to the council along with their wXaySpag, (the
actual deputy or minister). L, ds 8. Gr. & £ng. Lex., in voc.
S34 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHEBS.
cottabus in the bath, he said to him, " The better you do it, the
worse you do it.** Once at a banquet, some of the guests threw
him bones, as if he had been a dog ; so he, as he went away,
put up his leg against them as if he had been a dog in reality.
He used to call the orators, and all those who speak for fame
TQiiM^oyiFoi (thrice men), instead of r^igd^Xsoi (thrice misera-
ble). He said that a rich but ignorant man, was like a sheep
with a golden fleece. When he saw a notice on ^e house of
a profligate man, " To be sold.'* " I knew,'* said he, " that
jou who are so incessantly drunk, would soon Yomit up your
owner." To a young roan, who was complaining of the num-
ber of people who sought his acquaintance, he said, " Do not
make such a parade of your vanity.**
Having been in a very dirty bath, he said, "I wonder
where the people, who bathe here, clean tliemselves." When
all the company was blaming an indiflierent harp-player, he
alone praised him, and being asked why he did so, he said,
'* Because, though he is such as he is, he plays the harp and
does not steal*'* Ho saluted a harp player who was always
left alone by his hearers, with, '* Good morning, cock ; *' and
when the man asked him, "Why so ?" he said/ " Because you,
when you sing, make eveiy one get up.'' When a young man
was one day making a display of himself, he, having filled the
bosom of his robe with lupins, began to eat them ; and when
the multitude looked at him, he said, ^* that he marvelled at
their leaving the young man to look at him." And when a
man, who was very superstitious, said to him, '* With one
blow I will break your head ; ** " And I," he replied, ** with
one sneeze will make you tremble." When Hegesias en-
treated him to lend him one of his books, he said, '* You are
a silly fellow, Hegesias, for you will not take painted flgs, but
real ones ; and yet you overlook the genuine practice of virtue,
and seek for what is merely written.** A man once reproached
him with his banishment, and his answer was, '* You wretched
m^n, that is what made me a philosopher." And when, on
another occasion, some one said to him, ** The people of
Sinope condemned you to banishment,** he replied, ** And I
condemned them to remain where they were.** Once he saw
a man who had been victor at the Olympic games, feeding
(vt/Mvra) sheep, and he said to him, *' You have soon come
across my friend from the Olympic games, to the Nemean.*'
DIOGENES. 235
When he was asked why athletes are insensible to pain, he
said, " Because they are built up of pork and beef."
He once asked for a statue ; and being questioned as to
his reason for doing so, he said, '* I am practising disappoint-
ment/* Once he was begging of some one (for he did this
at first out of actual want), he said, " If you have given to
any one else, give also to me ; and if you have never given
to any one, then begin with me." On one occasion, he was
asked by the tyrant, ** What sort of brass was the best for a
statue?'* and he replied, " That of which the statues of Har-
modius and Aristogiton are made." When he was asked
how Dionysius treats his friends, he said, *• Like bags ; those
which are full he hangs up, and those which are empty he throws
away." A man who was lately married put an inscription
on his house, " Hercules Callinicus, the son of Jupiter, lives
here ; let no evil enter.** And so Diogenes wrote in addition,
••An alliance is made after the war is over.** He used to
say that covetousness was the metropolis of all evils. Seeing
on one occasion a profligate man in an inn eating olives, he
said, "If you had dined thus, you would not have supped
thus.** One of his apophthegms was, that good men were the
images of the Gods ; another, that love was the business of
those who had nothing to do. When he was asked what was
miserable in life, he answered, '* An indigent old man.'* And
when the question was put to him, what beast inflicts the
worst bite, he said, ** Of wild beasts the sycophant, and of
tame animals the flatterer.**
On one occasion he saw two Centaurs very badly painted ;
he said, " Which of the two is the worst?"* He used to say
that a speech, the object of which was solely to please, was a
honeyed halter. He called the belly, the Charybdis of life.
Having heard once that Didymon the adulterer, had been
caught in the fact, he said, " He deserves to be hung by his
name.**! When the question was put to him, why gold is of a
pale colour, he said, ** Because it has so many people plotting
• There is a pun here. Xtlpuw is the word ufled for worse. Chiron
was also the most celebrated of the Centaurs, the tutor of Achilles.
f There is a pun intended here ; as Diogenes proposed Didymus a
fate somewhat similar to that of the beaver.
Cupiens evadere damno
Testiculorum.
336 LIVES OF EMINENT PHIL0S0PHEB8.
against it." When he saw a woman in a litter, he said, " The
cage is not suited to the animal." And seeing a runaway
slave sitting on a well, he said, *' My boy, take care you do
not fall in." Another time, he saw a Uttle boy who was a
stealer of clothes from the baths, and said, " Are you going
for unguents, {W &\tifd,fjkdrtov), or for other garments (<«*'
aXV tfAariw), Seeing some women hanging on olive trees,
he said, *' I wish every tree bore similar fmit." At another
time, he saw a clothes' stealer, and addressed him thus : —
What moves thee, say, when sleep has clos'd the sight,
To roam the silent fields in dead of night ?
Art thou some wretch by hopes of plmider led,
Through heaps of carnage to despoU the dead.*
When he was asked whether he had any girl or boy to wait on
him, he said, " No." And as his questioner asked further,
" If then you die, who will bury you?" He replied, " Who-
ever wants my house." Seeing a handsome youth sleeping
without any protection, he nudged him, and said, " Wake
up: —
Hiz*d with the vulgar shall thy fate be found,
Pierc'd in the back, a vile dishonest woimd.t
And he addressed a man who was buying delicacies at a
great expense : —
Not long, my son, will you on earth remain,
If such your dealings, j:
When Plato was discoursing about his " ideas," and using
the nouns ** tableness " and " cupness ;" ** I, 0 Plato ! " inter-
rupted Diogenes, ** see a table and a cup, but I see no table-
ness or cupness." Plato made answer, "That is natural
enough, for you have eyes, by which a cup and a table are
contemplated ; but you have not intellect, by which tableness
and cupness are seen."
On one occasion, he was asked by a certain person, *' What
sort of a man, 0 Diogenes, do you think Socrates ?" and he
* This is taken from Homer, IL c. 887. Pope's Version, 455.
i* This is also from Homer. IL 6, 95. Pope's Version, 120.
X This is a psurody on Homer, 11. (. 95, where the line ends oV
dyopevHc — " if such is jour language," whidi Diogenes here changes to
ol dyopdZiiQ, if you buy such tfajngs.
DIOGENES. 1237
said, " A madman.'* Another time, the question was put to
him, when a man ought to many ? and his reply was,
** Young men ought not to marry yet, and old men neyer
ought to many at all." When asked what he would take to
let a man give him a hlow on the head?" he replied, "A
helmet." Seeing a youth smartening himself up yeiy care-
fully, he said to him, ** If you are doing that for men, you axe
miserable ; and if for women, you are profligate." Once he
saw a youth blushing, and addressed him, ** Courage, my
boy, that is the complexion of virtue." Having once Ustened
to two lawyers, he condemned them both ; saying,*' That the
one had stolen the thing in question, and that the other had
not lost it." When asked what wine he liked to drink, he
said, ** That which belongs to another," A man said to him
one day, " Many people laugh at you." " But I," he replied,
** am not laughed down." When a man said to him, that it
was a bad thing to live ; " Not to live," said he, " but to live
badly." When some people were advising him to make
search for a slave who had run away," he said, *' It would be a
very absurd thing for Manes to be able ,to live without
Diogenes, but for Diogenes not to be able to live without
Manes." When he was dining on olives, a cheese-cake was
brought in, on which he threw the olive away, saying :~
Keep well aloof, 0 stranger, from all tyrants.*
And presently he added : —
He drove the olive off (jtaori^iv ^ IXoav).t
When he was asked what sort of a dog he was, he replied,
" When hungry, I am a dog of Melita ; when satisfied, a
Molossian ; a sort which most of those who praise, do not
like to take out hunting with them, because of the labour of
keeping up with them ; and in like manner, you cannot associate
with me, from fear of the pain I give you." The question
was put t6 him, whether wise men ate cheese-cakes, and h&
replied, ** They eat everything, just as the rest of mankind."
When asked why people give to beggars and not to philoso-
* This is a line of the Fhoenisssa of Euripides, v. 40.
•f The pun here is on the similarity of the noun iXa&v, an olive, to
the verb IXaai/, to drive ; the words /xaort^cv d* ikaav are of frequent
occurrence in Homer.
238 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOFHEBS.
phers, he said, ''Because they think it possible that they
themselves may become lame and blind, but they do not
expect ever to turn out philosophers/* He once begged of a
covetous man, and as he was slow to give, he said, '' Man, I
iBLm asking you for something to maintain me (s/( r^of ^v and
not to bury me {tig rapiiv)." When some one reproached
him for having tampered with the coinage, he said, " There
was a time when I was such a person as you are now ; but
there never was when you were such as I am now, and never
will be." And to another person who reproached him on the
same grounds, he said, ** There were times when I did what I
did not wish to, but that is not the case now." When he went
to Myndus, he saw some very large gates, but the city was a
small one, and so he said, *' Oh men of Myndus, shut your
gates, lest your city should steal out.** On one occasion, he
saw a man who had been detected stealing purple, and so he
said :*—
A purple death, and mighty fate o'ertook him.*
When Craterus entreated him to come and visit him, he
said, ** I would rather lick up salt at Athens, than enjoy
a luxurious table with Craterus.'* On one occasion, he met
Anaximeues, the orator, who was a fat man, and thus accosted
him; " Pray give us, who are poor, some of your belly ; for
by so doing you will be relieved yourself, and you will assist
us.** And once, when he was discussing some point, Diogenes
held up a piece of salt fish, and drew off the attention of his
hearers ; and as Anaximenes was indignant at this, }ie said^
'* See, one pennyworth of salt fish has put an end to the
lecture of Anaximenes." Being once reproached for eating in
the market-place, he made answer, " 1 did, for it was in the
market-place that I was hungiy/* Some authors also attri-
bute the following repartee to him. Plato saw him washing
vegetables, and so, coming up to him, he quietly accosted
him thus, " If you had paid court to Dionysius, you would
not have been washing vegetables.'* " And,'* he replied,
with equal quietness, "if you had washed vegetables, you
would never have paid court to Dionysius.*' When a man
said to him once, " Most people laugh at you ; " " And very
* This line occurs, Hom. II. c. 83.
DIOGENES. 239
likely/' he replied, " the asses laugh at them ; hut they do not
regard the asses, neither do I regard them." Once he saw a
youth studying philosophy, and said to him, '* Well done ;
inasmuch as you are leading those who admire your person
to contemplate the heauty of your mind."
A certain person was admiring the offerings in the temple
at Samothrace,* and he said to Mm, '' They would have heen
much more numerous, if those who were lost had offered them
instead of those who were saved;*' but some attribute this
speech to Diagoras the Thelian. Once he saw a handsome
youth going to a banquet, and said to him, " You will come
back worse (x^t^o^v) ; " and when he the next day after the
banquet said to him, *' I have left the banquet, and was no
worse for it ; " he replied, " You were not Chiron, but Eury-
tion."-|- He was begging once of a very ill*tempered man, and
as he said to him, " If you can persuade me, I will give you
something;" he replied, " If I could persuade you, I would
beg you to hang yourself." H.e was on one occasion returning
from Lacedsemon to Athens ; and when some one asked him,
'* Whither are you going, and whence do you come?" he said,
'* I am going from the men's apartments to the women's."
Another time he was returning from the Olympic games, and
when some one asked him whether there had been a great
multitude there, he said, " A great multitude, but very few
men." He used to say that debauched men resembled figs
growing on a precipice ; the fruit of which is not tasted by men,
but devoured by crows and vultures. When Phryne had dedi-
cated a golden statue of Venus at Delphi, he wrote upon i%,
" From the profligacy of the Greeks."
Once Alexander the Great came and stood by him, and
said, '* I am Alexander, the great king." ** And I," said he,
** am Diogenes the dog." And when he was asked to what
actions of his it was owing that he was called a dog, he said,
** Because I fawn upon those who give me anything, and bark
at those who give me nothing, and bite the rogues." On one
occasion he was gathering some of the fruit of a fig-tree, and
* The Samothracian Gods were Qods of the sea, and it was custom-
ary for those who had been saved from shipwreck to make them an
offering of some part of what they had saved ; and of their hair, if they
had saved nothing but their lives.
f Eurytion was another of the Centaurs, who was killed by Hercules.
240 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
when the man who was guarding it told him a man hung him-
self on this tree the other day, '* I, then," said he, ** will now
purify it" Once he saw a man who had heen a conqueror at
the Olympic games looking very often at a courtesan ; " Look,"
said he, '* at that warlike ram, who is taken prisoner by the
first girl he meets." One of his sayings was, that good-look-
ing courtesans were like poisoned mead.
On one occasion he was eating his dinner in the market-
place, and the bystanders kept constantly calling out *' Dog ; '*
but he said, " It is you who are the dogs, who stand around
me while I am at dinner." When two effeminate fellows were
getting out of his way, he said, " Do not be afraid, a dog does
not eat beetroot." Being once asked about a debauched boy,
as to what country he came from, he said, " He is a Tegean."*
Seeing an unskilful wrestler professing to heal a man he said,
'* What are you about, are you in hopes now to overthrow those
who formerly conquered you ?" On one occasion he saw the
son of a courtesan throwing a stoue at a crowd, and said to
him, "Take care, lest you hit your feither." When a boy
showed him a sword that he had received from one to whom
he had done some discreditable service, he told him, " The
sword is a good sword, but the handle is infamous." And when
some people were praising a man who had given him some-
thing, he said to them, " And do not you praise me who was
wortiby to receive it?" He was asked by some one to give
him back his cloak ; but he replied, " If you gave it me, it is
mine ; and if you only lent it me, I am using it." A suppo-
sititious son (uto/SaX/^/o^) of somebody once said to him, that
he had gold in his cloak ; " No doubt," said he, " that is the
very reason why I sleep with it under my head (u^rojSijSXjj-
/Dbfvo^)." When he was asked what advantage he had derived
ixmcL philosophy, he replied, " If no other, at least this, that I
am prepared for every kind of fortune." The question was put
to him what countryman he was, and he replied, " A Citizen of
* This iB a pun* on the similarify of the sound, Tegea, to reyoc, a
brothel.
t The Greek Ib ipavov Aitoviuvoc vpbc rbv kqavapx^*' HVt — ipavoQ
was not only a subscription or contribution for the support of the poor,
but also a club or society of subscribers to a common fund for any
purpose, social, commercial, or charitable, or especially political. . .
On the various Ipavoi, v. Bockh, P. E. i 828. Att Process, p. 540, s. 99.
L, de 8. in voe. tpavoQ,
DIOGENES. 341
the world." Some men'were sacrificing to the Gods to prevail
on them to send them sons, and he said, *' And do you not sacri-
fice to procure sons of a particular character ?" ' Once he was
asking the president of a society for a contribution, and said to
• him:^ —
; " Spoil all the rest^ but keep your hands from Hector."
He used to say that courtesans were the queens of kings ;
for that they asked them for whatever they chose. When the
Athenians had voted that Alexander was Bacchus, he said to
them, " Vote, too, that I am Serapis." When a man re-
proached him for going into unclean places, he said, " The sun
too penetrates into privies, but is not polluted by them."
When supping in a temple, as some dirty loaves were set
before him, he took them up and threw them away, saying
that nothing dirty ought to come into a temple ; and when some
one said to him, " You philosophize without being possessed
of any knowledge," he said, ** If I only pretend to wisdom, that
is philosophizing." A man once brought him a boy, and said
that he was a very clever child, and one of an admirable dis-
position." " What, then," said Diogenes, " does he want of
me ? " He used to say, that those who utter virtuous senti-
ments but do not do them, are no better than harps, for that
a harp has no hearing or feeling. Once he was going into a
theatre while every one else was coming out of it ; and when
asked why he did so, '* It is," said he, ** what I have been
doing all my life.** Once when he saw a young man putting
on effeminate airs, he said to him, '* Are you not ashamed to
have worse plans for yourself than nature had for you ? for
she has made you a man, but you are trying to force yourself
to be a woman." When he saw an ignorant man tuning a
psaltery, he said to him, "Are you not ashamed to be
arranging proper sounds on a wooden instrument, and not
arranging your soul to a proper life ? " When a man said to
him, ** I am not calculated for philosophy," he said, "Why then
do you live, if you have no desire to live properly ? " To a
man who treated his father with contempt, he said, ** Are you
not ashamed to despise him to whom you owe it that you
have it in your power to give yourself airs at all ? " Seeing
a handsome young man chattering in an unseemly manner,
B
d42 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
he said, " Are you not asliamed to draw a sword cut of lead
out of a scabbard of ivoiy ? " Being once reproached for
drinking in ar vintner's shop, he said, '* I have my hair cut,
too, in a barber's.*' At another time, he was attacked for
having accepted a cloak from Antipater, but he replied: —
** BefiiBe not thou to heed
The gifts wnicb from the mighty Qods proceed."*
A man once struck him with a broom, and said, '* Take'care ;"*
so he struck him in return with his stafiT, and said, *' Take
care."
He once said to a man who was addressing anxious en-
treaties to a courtesan, " What can you wish to obtain, you
wretched man, that you had not better be disappointed in ? '*
Seeing a man reeking all over with unguents, he said to
him, " Have a care, lest the fragrance of your head give a
bad odour to your life." One of his sayings was, that
servants serve their masters, and that wicked men are the
slaves of their appetites. Being asked why slaves were
called av3^fltflro3a, he replied, " Because they have the feet of
men (roug ^6dag avd^uv), and a soul such as you who are
asking this question." He once asked a profligate fellow for
a mina ; and when he put the question to him, why he asked
others for an obol, and him for a mina, he said, '* Because I hope
tb get something from the others another time, but the Gods
alone know wbether I shall ever extract anything from you
again." Once he was reproached for asking favours, while
Plato never asked for any ; and he said ; —
, " He asks as well as I do, but he does it
Bending his head, that no one else may hear."
One day he saw an unskilful archer shooting ; so he went
and sat down by the target, saying, " Now I shall be out of
harm's way." He used to say, that those who were in love
were disappointed in regard of the pleasure they expected.
When he was asked whether death was an evil, he replied,
•• How can that be an evil which we do not feel when it is
present?". When Alexander was once standing by him, and
saying, " Do not you fear me?" He repHed, " No ; for what
are you, a good or an evil? *' And as he said that he was
• Horn. n. r. 65.
BIOGfiNES. 243
good, " Who, then/ said Diogenes, " fears the good ?" He used
to say, that education was, for the young sobriety, fot the old
comfort, for the poor riches, and for the rich an ornament."
When Didymus the adulterer was once trying to cure the eye
of a young girl (x^^jjj), he said, " Take care, lest when you
are curing the eye of the maiden, you do not hurt the pupil."*
A man once said to him, that his friends laid plots against
him ; " What then," said he, " are you to do, if you must look
upon both your friends and enemies in the same light?"
On one occasion he was asked, what was the most excellent
thing among men ; and he said, '* Freedom of speech.*'
He went once int^ a school, and saw many statues of the
Muses, but very few pupils, and said, " Gods, and all my
good schoolmasters, you have plenty of pupils.'* He was in
the habit of doing everything in public, whether in respect of
Venus or Ceres ; and he used to put his conclusions in this
way to people : ** If there is nothing absurd in dining, then
it is not absurd to dine in the market-place. But it is not
absurd to dine, therefore it is not absurd to dine in the
market-place." And as he was continually doing manual worlt
in public, he said one day, " Would that by rubbing my belly
I could get rid of hunger." Other sayings also are attributed
to him, which it would take a long time to enumerate, there
is such a multiplicity of them.
He used to say, that there were two kinds of exercise : '
that, namely, of the mind and that of the body ; and that the
latter of these created in the mind such 'quick and agile '
phantasies at the time of its performance, as very much facili-
tated the practice of virtue; but that one was imperfect
without the other, since the health and vigour necessary for
the practice of what is good, depend equally on both mind
and body. And he used to allege as proofs of this, and of the
ease which practice imparts to acts of virtue, that people could
see that in the case of mere common working trades, and other
employments of that kind, the artisans arrived at no incon-
siderable accuracy by constant practice; and that any one
may see how much one flute player, or one wrestler, is superior
to another, by his own continued practice. And that if these
* There is a pun here ; ieopi| means both " a girl ** and "the pupil of
the eye." And ^Otlput, J* to destroy," is also especially used for '' to
seduce."
R d
344 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHEIta
men transferred the same training to their minds they would
not labour in a profitless or imperfect manner. He used to
say also, that there was nothing whatever in life which could
be brought to perfection without practice, and that that alone
was able to overcome eveiy obstacle ; that, therefore, as we
ought to repudiate all useless toils, and to apply ourselves to
useful labours, and to live happily, we are only unhappy in
consequence of mOst exceeding folly. . For the very contempt
of pleasure, if we only inure oursehes to it, is very pleasant;
and just as they who are accustomed to live luxuriously, are
brought very unwillingly to adopt the contrary system ; so they
who have been origixiaUy inured to that apposite system, feel
a sort of pleasure in the contempt of pleasure.
This uaed to be the language which he held, and he used to
show in practice, really altering men's habits, and deferring in
all things rather to the principles of nature than to those of
law ; saying that he was adopting the same fashion of life as
Hercules had, preferriug nothing in the world to liberty ; and
saying that everything belonged to the wise, and advancing
arguments such as I mentioned just above. For instance :
every thing belongs to the Gods ; and the Grods are friends to
the wise ; and all the property of friends is held in common ;
therefore efverything belong to the wise. He also argued
about the law, that without it there is no possibility of a
constitution being maintained ; for without a city there can be
nothing orderly, but a city is an orderly thing ; and without a
city there can be no law ; therefore law is order. And he
played in the same manner with the topics of noble birth*
and reputation, and all things of that kind, saying that they
were all veils, as it were, for wickedness ; and that that was
the only proper constitution which consisted in order. An-
other of his doctrines was that all women ought to be possessed
in common ; and he said that marriage was a nullity, and that
the proper way would be for every man to live with her whom
he could persuade to agree wilJi him. And on the same
principle he said, that all people's sons ought to belong to
every one in common ; and there was nothing intolerable in
the idea of taking anything out of a temple, or eating any
animal whatever, and that there was no impiety in tasting even
human flesh ; as is plain from the habits of foreign nations ;
and he said that this principle might be correctly extended to
DIOGENE& 246
> ■
every case and every people. For he said that in reality every-
thing mis a combination of all things. For that in bread
there was meat, and in vegetables there was bread, and so
there were some particles of all other bodies in everything,
communicating by invisible passages and evaporating.
VII. And he explains this theory of ins clearly in the
Thyestes, if indeed the tragedies attributed to him are really
his composition, and not rather the work of Philistus, of
'^Igina, his intimate Mend, or of Pasiphon, the son of Lucian,
who is stated by Phavorinus, in his Universal History, to
have written them after Diogenes* death.
VIII. Music and geometry, and astronomy, and all things
of that kind, he neglected, as useless and unnecessary. But
he was a man very happy in meeting arguments, as is plain
from what we have already said.
IX. And he bore being sold with a most magnanimous
spirit. For as he was sailing to iSgina, and was taken
prisoner by some pirates, under the command of Scirpalus, he
was carried off to Crete and sold; and when the Circe asked
him what art he understood, he said, " That of governing
men." And presently pointing out a Corinthian, very carefully
dressed, (the same Xeniades whom we have mentioned before),
he said, "Sell me to that man; for he wants a master.''
Accordingly Xeniades bought him and carried him away to
Corinth ; and then he made him tutor of his sons, and com-
mitted to him the ^itire management of his house. And he
behaved himself in every affair in such a manner, that
Xeniades, when looking over his property, said, "A good
genius has come into my house." And Cleomenes, in his
book which is called the Schoolmaster, says, that he wished
to ransom all his relations, but that Diogenes told him that
they were aD fools ; for that lions did not become the slaves
of tiiose who kept them, but, on the contrary, those who main-
tained lions were their slaves. For that it was the part of a
slave to fear, but that wild beasts were formidable to men.
X« And the man had the gift of persuasion in a wonderful
degree ; so that he could easily overcome any one by his argu-
ments. Accordingly, it is said that an ^ginetan of the name
of Onesicritus, having two sons, sent to Athens one of them,
whose name was Androsthenes, and that he, after having
heard Diogenes lecture, remained there; and that after
!246 LIVES OF EMINENT FHIL080PHEB&
that, he sent the elder^ Philiscus, who has heen already men-
tioned, and that Philiscus was clmnned in the same manner.
And last of all, he came himself, and then he too remained,
no less than his son, studying philosophy at the feet of
Diogenes. So great a charm was there in the discourses of
Diogenes. Another pupil of his was Phocion, who was sur-
named the Good; and Stilpon, the Megarian, and a great
many other men of eminence as statesmen.
XI. He is said to have died when he was nearly ninety
years of age, hut there are different accounts given of his
death. For some say that he ate an ox's foot raw, and was in
consequence seized with a hilious' attack, of which he died ;
others, of whom Oercidas, a Megalopolitan or Cretan, is one,
say that he died of holding his hreath for several days ; and
Oercidas speaks thus of him in his Meliamhics :—
He, that Sinopian who bore the stick,
Wore his doak doubled, and in th' open air
Dined without washing, would not bear with life
A moment longer : but he ahut his teeth.
And held his breath. £[e truly was the son
Of Jove, and a most heavenly-minded dog,
The wise Diogenes,
Others say that he, while intending to distribute a polypus to
his dogs, was bitten by them through the tendon of his foot,
and so died. But his own greatest friends, as Antisthenes
tells us in his Successions, -rather sanction the story of his
having died from holding his breath. For he used to live in
the Oraneum, which was a Gymnasium at the gates of Oorinth.
And his friends came according to their custom, and found
him with his head covered ; and as they did not suppose that
he was asleep, for he was not a man much subject to the
influence of night or sleep, they drew away his cloak from his
£Bu;e, and found him no longer breathing ; and they thought
that he had done this on purpose, wi^ng to escape the
remaining portion of his life.
On this there was a qu£g:rel, as they say, between his friends,
as to who should huty him, and they even came to blows ; hut
when the elders and chief men of the city came there, they
say that he was buried by them at the gate which leads to
the Isthmus, And they placed over him a pillar, and on that
a dog in Parian marble. And at a later period his fellow
DIOGENES. 247
citizens honoured him with brazen statues, and put this
inscription on them : —
E'en brass by lapse of time doth old become^
But there is no such time as shall efface,
Tour lasting glory, wise Diogenes ;
Since you alone did teach to men the art
Of a contented life : the surest path
To glory and a lasting happiness.
We ourselves have also written an epigram on him in the
proceleusmatic metre.
A. Tell me, JMogenea^ tell me true, I pray,
How did you die ; what fate to Pluto bore you ?
S. The savage bite of an envious dog did kill me.
Some* however, say that when he was dying, he ordered
his friends to throw his corpse awa^ without burying it, so
that every beast might tear it, or else to throw it into a ditch,
and sprinkle a little dust over it. And others say that his
ii\junctions were, that he should he thrown into the Ilissus ;
that so he might be useful to his brethren. But Demetrius,
in his treatise on Men of the Same Name, says that Diogenes
died in Corinth the same day that Alexander died in BabyloD.
And he was already an old man, as early as the hundred and
thirteenth olympiad.
XII. The following books are attributed to him. The
dialogues entitled th^ Cephalion ; the Icthyas ; the Jackdaw ;
the Leopard; the People of the Athenians; the Eepublic;
one called Moral Art; one on Wealth; one on Love; the
Theodorus ; the Hypsias ; the Aristarchus ; one on Death ;
a volume of Letters ; seven Tragedies, the Helen, the
Thyestes, the Hercules, the Achilles, the Medea, the Chrysip-
pus, and the (Edippus.
But Sosicrates, in the first hook of his Successions, and
Satyrus, in the fourth book of his Lives, both assert that none
of all these are the genuine composition of Diogenes. And
Satyrus affirms that the tragedies are the. work of Fhiliscus,
the ^ginetan, a friend of Diogenes. But Sotion, in his
seventh book, says that these are the only genuine works of
Diogenes : a dialogue on Virtue ; another on the Good ;
anoUier on Love ; the Beggar ; the SolmaBus ; the Leopard ;
the Oassander ; the Cephalion ; and that the Aristarchus, the
248 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHEBS.
Sisyphus, the Ganymede, a volume of Apophthegms, and
another of Letters, are all the work of Philiscus.
XIII. There were ^\e persons of the name of Diogenes.
The first a native of ApoUonia, a natural philosopher; and
the heginning of his treatise on Natural Philosophy is as
follows: "It appears to me to be weU for every one who
commences any kind of philosophical treatise, to lay down
some undeniable principle to. start with.'* The second was a
Sicymian, who wrote an account of Peloponnesus. The third
was the man of whom we have been speaking. The fourth
was a Stoic, a native of Seleucia, but usually called a Baby-
lonian, from the proximity of Seleucia to Babylon. The
fifth was a native of Tarsus, who wrote on the subject of some
questions concerning poetry which he endeavours to solve.
XIY. Athenodorus, in the eighth book of his Conversations,,
says, that the philosopher always had a shining appearance,,
from lus habit of anointing himself.
LIFE OF MONIMUS.
I. MoNiMUS was a Syracusan, and a pupil of Diogenes, but
also a slave of some Corinthian money-changer, as Sosicrates
tells us. Xeniades, who bought Diogend&, used often to come
to him, extolling the excellency of Diogenes both in actions
and words, till he excited a great affection for the man in the
mind of Monimus. For he immediately feigned madness,
and threw about all the money and all the coins that were
on the table, until his master discarded him, and then he
straightway went to Diogenes and became his pupil. He also
followed Crates the Cynic a good deal, and devoted himself to
the same studies as he did ; and the sight of this conduct of
his made his master all the more think him mad.
II. And he was a very eminent man, so that even Menander,
the comic poet, speaks of him; accordingly, in one of his
plays, namely in the Hippocomus, he mentions him thus : —
There is a man, 0 Fhilo, named Monimus,
A wise man, though but htde known, and one
ONESICRITUS. 249
Who bean a wallet at bis back, and is not
Content witb one but three. He never spoke
A single sentence, by^ great Jove I swear,
Like thiA one, '* Eluow thyself," or any other
Of the oftKiuoted proyerbs : all such sayings
He scorned, as he did beg his way through dirt ;
TeaohJog that all opinioi^ is but Tanity.
But he was a man of sach gravity that he despised gloiy, and
sought only for truth.
III. He wrote some jests mingled with serious treatises*
and two essays on the Appetites, and an Exhortation.
LIFE OP ONESICMTUS.
I. OsNESioBiTUs is Called by some authors' an ^ginetan,
but Demetrius the Magnesian affirms that he was a native of
AstypalsBa. He also was one of the most eminent of the
disciples of Diogenes.
II. And he appears in dome points to resemble Xenophon.
For Xenophon joined in the expedition of Cyrus, and Onesi-
critus in that of Alexander ; and Xenophon wrote the
CyropflBdia, and Onesicritus wrote an account of the education
of Alexander. Xenophon, too, wrote a Panegyric on Cyrus,
and Onesicritus one on Alexander. They were also both
similar to one another in style, except that a copyist is
naturally inferior to the origins^.
III. Menander, too, who was sumamed Drymus, was a pupil
of Diogenes, and a great admirer of Homer: and so was
Hegesaeus of Sinope, who was nicknamed Clocus, and Philiscus
the ^ginetan, as we have said before.
LIFE OF CRATES.
I. Cbateb was a Theban by birth, and the son of Ascondus.
He also was one of the eminent disciples of the Cynic. But
Hippobotus asserts that he was not a pupil of Diogenes, but
of Biyson the Achsean.
260 LIVES OP BMINENT FHIL080FHBBS. ,
II. There are the following sportive lines of his quoted :^
The waves surround vain Peres' fruitful sol].
And fertile acres crown the sea-bora isle ;
I^md which no parasite e'er dares invade^
Or lewd seducer of a hapless maid ;
It bears figs, bread, thyme, garlic's savoury charms.
Gifts which ne'er tempt men to detested arms,
They'd rather fight for gold than glory's dreams.
There is also an account-book of his much spoken of, which
is drawn up in such terms as these :^
Put down the cook for minas half a score.
Put down the doctor for a drachma more :
Five talents to the flatterer ; some smoke
To the adviser, an obol and a cloak
For the philosopher ; for the willing nymph,
A talent . . . •
He was also nicknamed Door-opener, because he used to
enter every house and give the inmates advice. These lines,
too, are his : —
All this I learnt and pondered in my mind.
Drawing deep wisdom from the Muses kind.
But all the rest is vanity.
There is a line, too, which tells us that he gained from
philosophy : —
A peck of lupins, and to care for nobody.
This, too, is attributed to him : —
Hunger checks love ; and should it not, time does.
If both should fail you, then a halter dioose.
III. He flourished about the hundred and thirteenth
olympiad.
IV. Antisthenes, in his Successions, says that he, having
once, in a certain tragedy, seen Telephus holding a date basket^
and in a miserable plight in other respects, betook himself to
the Cynic philosophy ; and having turned his patrimony into
money (for he was of illustrious extraction), he collected three
hundred talents by that means, and divided them among the
citizens. And after that he devoted himself to philosophy
with such eagerness, that even Philemon the comic poet
mentions him. Accordingly he says : — ^
GRATES. 251
And in the summer he'd a shaggy gown,
To inure himself to hardship : in the winter
He wore mere rags.
But Diodes says that it was Diogenes who persuaded him
to discard all his estate and his flocks, and to throw his
money into the sea ; and he says further, that the house of
Crates was destroyed by Alexander, and that of Hipparchia
under Philip. And he would vpry frequently drive away with
his staff those of his relations who came after him, and
endeavoured to dissuade him from his design ; and he remained
immoveable.
v. Demetrius, the Magnesian, relates that he deposited his
money with a banker, making an agreement with him, that if
his sons turbed out ordinary ignorant people, he was then to
restore it to them ; but if they became philosophers, then he
was to divide.it among the people, for that they, if they were
philosophers, would have no need of anything. And Eratos-
thenes tells us that he had by Hipparchia, whom we shall men-
tion hereafter, a son whose name was Pasicles, and that when
he grew up, he took him to a brothel kept by a female slave,
and told him that that was all the marriage that his fiEither
designed for him ; but that marriages which resulted in adul-
tery were themes for tragedians, and had exile and bloodshed
for their prizes ; and the marriages of those who lived with
courtesans were subjects for the comic poets, and often pro-
duced madness as the result of debauchery and drunkenness.
VI. He had also a brother named Pasicles, a pupil of
Euclides.
VII. Phavoriims, in the second book of his Commentaries,
relates a witty saying of his ; for he says, that once, when he
was begging a f&youi of the master of a gymnasium, on the
behalf of some acquaintance, he touched his thighs ; and as
he expressed his indignation at this, he said, " Why, do they
not belong to you as well as your knees?" He used to say
that it was impossible to find a man who had never done wrong,
in the same way as there was always some worthless seed in
a pomegranate. On one occasion he provoked Nicodromus,
the harp-player, and received a black eye from him ; so he
put a plaster on his forehead and wrote upon it, "Nicodromus
did this.'* He used to abuse prostitutes designedly, for the
purpose of practising himself in enduring reproaches. When
252 LIYES OF EHimSNT FHXLOSOPHEBS.
Demetrius Phalereus sent him some loaves and wine, he
attacked him for his present, saying, ** I wish that the foun-
tains bore loaves ; " and it is notorious that he was a water
drinker.
He was once reproved by the sediles of the Athenians, for
wearing fine linen, and so he replied, " I will show you Theo-
phrastus also clad in fine linen." And as they did not believe
him, he took them to a barber's shop, and showed him to them
as he was being shaved. At Thebes he was once scourged by
the master of the Gymnasium, (though some say it was by
Euthycrates, at Corinth), and dragged out by the feet ; but he
did not care, and quoted the line :—
I feel, 0 mighty chief, your matchless might, *
Dragged, foot first, downward from th' ethereal height.*
But Diodes says that it was by Menedemus, of Eretiia,
that he was dragged in this manner, for that as he was a
handsome man, and supposed to be very obsequious to Ascle-
piades, the Phliasian, Grates touched his thighs and said, " Is
Asclepiades within?" And Menedemus was very much
offended, 'and dragged him out, as has been already said ; and
then Crates quoted the above-cited line*
VIII. Zeno, the Cittisean, in his Apophthegms, says, that
he once sewed up a sheep's fleece in his cloak, without think-
ing of it ; and he was a very ugly man, and one who excited
laughter when he was taking exercise. And he used to say,
when he put up his hands, " Courage, Crates, as far .as your
eyes and the rest of your body is concerned ; —
IX. " For you shall see those who now ridicule you, con-
vulsed with disease, and envying your happiness, and accusing
themselves of slothfulness." One of his sayings was, " That
a man ought to study philosophy, up to the point of looking
on generals and donkey-drivers in the same light.** Another
was, that those who live with flatterers, are as desolate as
calves when in the company of wolves ; for that neither the
one nor the other are with those whom they ought to be, or
their own kindred, but only with those who are plotting
against them.
X. When he felt that he was dying, he made verses on
himself, saying : —
• This is a parody on Hotoer. XL 691. Pope's Version, 760.
METBOCLES. 253
You're going, noble himchback, you are going
To Pluto's realms, bent double by old age.
For he was humpbacked from age.
XI. When Alexander asked him whether he wished to see
the restoration of his country, he said, ** What would be the
use of it ? for perhaps some other Alexander would come at
some future time and destroy it again.
" But poverty and dear obscurity,
Are what a prudent man should think his country ;
For these e'en fortune can't depriye him o£"
He also said that he was : —
A fellow countryman of wise Diogenes,
Whom even envy never had attacked.
Menander, in his Twin-sister, mentions him thus :—
For you will walk with me wrapped in your cloak.
As his wife used to with the Cynic Crates.
XII. He gave his daughter to his pupils, as he himself
used to say : —
To have and keep on trial for a month.
LIFE OF METROCLES.
I. Metbocles was the brother of Hipparehia ; and though
he had formerly been a pupil of Theophrastus, he had
profited so little by his instructions, that once, thinking
that, while listening to a lecture on philosophy, he had dis-
graced himself by his inattention, he fell into despondency,
and shut himself up in his house, intending to starve himself
to death. Accordingly, when Crates heard of it, he came to
him, having been sent for; and eating a number of lupins, on
purpose, he persuaded him by numbers of arguments, that he
had done no harm ; for that it was not to be expected that a
man should not indulge his natural inclinations and habits ;
and he comforted him by showing him that he, in a similar
case, would certainly have behaved in a similar manner.
S54 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHEBS.
And after that, he became a pupil of Crates, and a man of
great eminence as a philosopher.
II. He burnt all his writings, as Hecaton tells us in the
first book of his Apophthegms, and said : —
These are the phantoms of inf emal dreams ;
As if he meant that they were all nonsense. But some say
that it was. the notes which he had taken of the lectures of
Theophrastus which he burnt, quoting the following verse : —
Yulcan, draw near, 'tis Thetis asks your aid.*
III. He used to say that some things could be bought
with money, as for instance a house ; and some with time and
industry, as education; that wealth was mischievous; if a
man did not use it properly.
IV. He died at a great age, having suffocated himself
y. His pupils were Theomentus and Oleomenes, Deme-
trius of Alexandria, the son of Theombrotus, Timarchus of
Alexandria, the.son of Cleomenes, and Echecles, of Ephesus.
Not but what Echecles was also a pupil of Theombrotus; and
Menedemus, of whom we shall speak hereafter, was his pupil.
Menippus, of Sinope, too, was a very eminent person in his
schooL
LIFE OF HIPPARCHIA.
I. HiPPARCHiA, the sister of Metrocles, was charmed among
others, by the doctrines of this school.
II. Both she and Metrocles were natives of Maronea. She
fell in love with both the doctrines and manners of Crates,
and could not be diverted from her regard for him, by either
the wealth, or high birth, or personal beauty, of any of her
suitors, but Crates was everything to her ; and she threatened
her parents to make away with herself, if she were not given
in marriage to him. Crates accordingly, being entreated by
her parents to dissuade her from this resolution, did all he
♦ Hom. n. 2. 895. Pope's version, 460.
HIPPARCHIA. 255
could ; and at last, as he could not persuade her, he rose up,
and placing all his furniture before her, he said, '* This is the
bridegroom whom you are choosing, and this is the whole of
his property ; consider these facts, for it will not be possible
for you to become his partner, if you do not also apply your-
self to the same studies, and conform to the same habits
that he does.* But the girl chose him ; and assuming the
same dress that he wore, went about with him as her husband,
and appeared with him in pubhc eyerywhere, and went to
all entertainments in his company.
III. And once when she went to sup with Lysimachus, she
attacked Theodorus, who was sumamed the Atheist ; propos-
ing to him the following sophism ; " What Theodorus could
not be called wrong for doing, that same thing Hipparchia
ought not to be called wrong for doing. But Theodorus does
no wrong when he beats himself; therefore Hipparchia does
no wrong when she beats Theodorus." He made no reply to
what she said, but only pulled her clothes about ; but Hippar-
chia was neither offended nor ashamed, as many a woman
would have been ; but when he said to her :^
*' Who is the woman who has left the shuttle
So near the warp f*
"I, Theodoras, am that person,** she replied; "but do I
appear to you to have come to a wrong decision, if I devote
that time to philosophy, which I otherwise should have spent
at the loom?*' And these and many other sayings are
reported of this female philosopher.
IV. There is also a volume of letters of Oratest extant, in
which he philosophizes most excellently ; and in style is very
little inferior to Plato. He also wrote some tragedies, which
are imbued with a very sublime spirit of philoeophy» of which
the following lines are a specimen : —
'Tib not one town, nor one poor enngle honae^
That is my country ; but in every land
Each city and each dwelling seems to me^
A place for my reception ready made.
And he died at a great age, and was buried in Bceotia.
* This line is from the Bacchas of Euripides, v. 1228.
t From this last paragraph it is inferred by some critics, that origin-
ally the preceding memoirs of Cratei, Metrodes^ and Hipparchia,
formed only one chapter or book.
256 LIVES OF EMIJ7ENT PHILOSOPHEB&
LIFE OF MENIPPUS.
I. Mentfpus was also a Cynic, and a Phoenician by descent,
a slave by birth, as Achaicus tells us in his Ethics; and Diocles
informs us that his master was a native of Pontus, of the
name of Baton ; but that subsequently, in consequence of his
importunities and miserly habits, he became rich, and obtained
the rights of citizenship at Corinth.
II. He never wrote anything serious ; but his writings are
fiill of ridiculous matter; and in some respects similar to
those of Meleager, who was his contemporary. And Hermip-
pus tells us that he was a man who lent money at dally
interest, and that he was called a usurer; for he used to
lend on nautical usury, and take security, so tibat he amassed
a very great amount of riches.
III. But at last he fell into a snare, and lost all his money,
and in a fit of despair he hung himself, and so he died. And
we have written a playful epigram on him :—
This man was a Syrian by birth.
And a Cretan usurious hound^
As the name he was known by seta forth ;
TouVe heard of him oft 111 be bound ;
His name was Menippus — men entered his house^
And stole all his goods without leaving a louBe,
When (from this the dog's oaAure you plainly may tell)
He hung himself up, and so went off to helL
lY. But some say that the books attributed to him are not
really his work, but are the composition of Dionysius and
Zopyrus the Colophonians, who wrote them out of joke, and
then gave them to him as a man well able to dispose of tiiem.
V. There were six persons of the name of Menippus ; the
first was the man who wrote a history of the Lydians, and
made an abridgment of Xanthus ; the second was this man of
whom we have been speaking ; the third was a sophist of
Stratonice, a Carian by descent ; the fourth was a statuary :
the fifth and the sixth were painters, and they are both men-
tioned by Apollodorus.
VI." The writings left by the Cynic amount to thirteen
volumes ; a Description of the Dead ; a volume called Wills ;
HENBDEMU8. 257
a volume of Letters in which the Gods are introduced ; treatises
addressed to the Natural Philosophers, and Mathematicians,
and Grdmmanans ; one on the Generations of Epicurus, and on
the Observance of the Twentieth Day by the philosophers of
his school ; and one or two other essays.
THE LIFE OF MENEDEMUS.
L Menedemtjs was a disciple of Celotes of Lampsacus.
XL He proceeded, as Hippobotus tells, to such a great degree
of superstition, that he assumed the garb of a fury, and went
about saying that he had come from hell to take notice of all
who did wrong, in order that he might descend thither again
and make his report to the deities who abode in that country.
And this was his dress : a tunic of a dark colour reaching to his
feet, and a purple girdle round his waist, an Arcadian hat on
his head with the twelve signs of the zodiac embroidered
on it, tragic buskins, a preposterously long beard^ and an ashen
staff in his hand.
III. These then are the lives of each of the Cynics *, and We
shall also subjoin some of the doctrines which they all held in
common, if indeed it is not an abuse of language to call that a
sect of philosophy at all, instead of, as some contend it should
be termed, a mere system of life*
They wished to abolish the whole system of logic and natural
philosophy, like Aristo of Chios, and thought that tnen should
study nodiing but ethics ; and what some people assert of
Socrates was described by Diodes as a characteristic of Dio-
genes, for he said that his doctrine was, that a man ought to
investigate —
Only the good ahd ill that taketh place
Within otir houseB.
They also discard all' liberal studieSi Accordingly, Antis-
thenes said that wise men only applied themselves to litera-
ture and learning for the sake of perverting others ; they also
wish to abolish geometiy and music, and everything of that
258 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHEBS.
kind. Accordingly, Diogenes said once to a person who was
showing him a clock ; " It is a very useful thing to save a
man from being too late for supper.'* And once when a man
made an exhibition of musical skill before him, he said : —
** Cities are governed,, io are houaes too.
By wiadom, not by harp-playing and whigtling." *
Their doctrine is, that the chief good of mankind is to live
according to virtue, as Antisthenes says in his Hercules, in
which they resemble the Stoics. For those two sects have a
good deal in common with one another, on which account they
themselves say that cynicism is a short road to virtue ; and
Zeno, the Cittisean lived in the same manner.
They also teach that men ought to live simply, using only
plain food in moderate quantities, wearing nothing but a cloak,
and despising riches, and glory, and nobleness of birth ; ac-
cordingly some of them feed upon nothing beyond herbs and
cold water, living in any shelter that they can find, or in tubs
as Diogenes did ; for he used to say that it was the peculiar
property of the Gods to want nothing, and that, therefore,
when a man wished for nothing he was like the Gods,
Another of their doctrines is, that virtue is a thing which
may be taught, as Antisthenes affirms in his Heraclides ; and
that when it has once been attained it can never be lost.
They also say that the wise man deserves to be loved, and
cannot commit error, and is a friend to every one who resem-
bles him, and that he leaves nothing to fortune. And every-
thing winch is unconnected with either virtue or vice they call
indifferent, agreeing in this with Ariato, the Chian.
These then were the Cynics ; and now we must pass on to
the Stoics, of which sect the founder was Zeno, who had been
a disciple of Grates,
* This a parody on two lines in the Antiope of Enripideflt
Pvwuy yiip ivSpoQ (^ fi^v oUovvrai ir6\tiQ.
"Ei o^oiKog iIq r^ av voKiimv iaxvn fiiya* ^
Which may be translated : —
Wisdom it is which regulates both cities,"
And private citizens, and makes their lot
Secure and happy ; nor is her influence
Of less account in war. .
259
BOOK VII.
LIFE OF ZENO.
I. Zeno was the son of Innaseas, or Demeas, and a native
of Citium, in Cyprus, which is a Grecian city, partly occupied
by a Phoenician colony,
II. He had his head naturally bent on one side, as Timo-
theus, the Athenian, tells us, in his work on Lives. And
Apollonius, the Tyrian, says that he was thin, very tall, of a
dark complexion ; in reference to which some one once called
him an Egyptian Clematis, as Chrysippus delates in the first
volume of his Proverbs : he had fat, flabby, weak legs, on
which account Persaeus, in his Convivial Reminiscences, says
that he used to tefuse many invitations to supper ; and he
was very fond, as it is said, of figs both fresh and dried in
the sun.
III. He was a pupil, as has been already stated, of Crates.
After that, they say that he became a pupil of Stilpon and of
Xenocrates, for ten years, as Timocrates relates in his Life of
Dion. He is also said to have been a pupil of Polemo. But
Hecaton, and Apollonius, of Tyre, in the first book of his
essay on Zeno, say that when he consulted the oracle, as to
what he ought to do to live in the most excellent meinner, the
God answered him that he ought to become of the same
complexion as the dead, on which he inferred that he ought
to apply himself to the reading of the books of the ancients.
Accordingly, he attached himself to Crates in the following
manner. Having purchased a quantity of purple from Phoenicia,
he was shipwrecked close to the Piraeus ; and when he had
made his way from the coast as far as Athens, he sat down by
a bookseller's stall, being now about thirty years of age. And
as he took up the second book of Xenopbon's Memorabilia and
began to read it, he was delighted with it, and asked where
such men as were described in that book lived ; and as Crates
happened very seasonably to pass at the moment, the book-
seller pointed him out, and said, " Follow that man.'* From
s d
260 UVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
that time forth he became a pupil of Crates ; but though he
was in other respects yeiy energetic in his application to
philosophy, still he was too modest for the shamelessness of
the Cynics. On which account, Crates, wishing to cure him
of this false shame, gave him a jar of lentil porridge to cany
through the Ceramicus; and when he saw that he was
ashamed, and that he endeavoured to hide it, he struck the
jar with his staff, and broke it ; and, as Zeno fled away, and
the lentil porridge ran all down his legs. Orates called after
•him, " Why do you run away, my little Phoenician, you have
done no harm ?" For some time then he continued a pupil of
Crates, and when he wrote his treatise entitled the Republic,
some said, jokingly, that he had wTitten it upon the tail of the
dog.
IV . And besides his Republic, he was the author also of the
following works : — a treatise on a Life according to Nature ;
one on Appetite, or the Nature of Man ; one on Passions ;
one on the Becoming ; one on Law ; one on the usual Edu-
cation of the Greeks ; one on Sight ; one on the Whole ; one
on Signs ; one on the Doctrines of the Pythagoreans ; one on
Things in General ; one on Styles ; five essays on Problems
relating to Homer ; one on the Bearing of the Poets. There
is also an essay on Art by him, and two books of Solutions
and Jests, and Reminiscences, and one called the Ethics of
Crates. These are the books of which he was the author.
V. But at last he left Crates, and became the pupil of the
philosophers whom I have mentioned before, and continued
with them for twenty years* So that it is related that he said,
" I now find that I made a prosperous voyage when I was
wrecked." But some affirm that he made this speech in
reference to Crates. Others say, that while he was staying at
Athens he heard of a shipwreck, and said, " Fortune does well
in having driven us on philosophy*" But as some relate the
affiiir, he was not wrecked at all, but sold all his cargo at
Athens, and then turned to philosophy*
YI. And he used to walk up and down in the beautiful
colonnade which is called the Priscanactium, and which is also
called 4ro/x/X9j, from the paintings of Polygnotus, and there he
dejivered his discourses, wishing to make that spot tranquil ;
for in the time of the thirty, nearly fourteen himdred of the
citizens had been murdered there by them.
ZENO. 261
yil. Accordingly, for the future, men came thither to hear
him, and from this his pupils were called Stoics, and so were
his successors also, who had been at first called Zenonians, as
Epicurus tells us in his Epistles. And before this time, the
poets who frequented this colonnade (tfrocb) had been called
Stoics, as we are informed by Eratosthenes, in the eighth book
of his treatise on the Old Comedy ; but now Zeno's pupils
made the name more notorious. Now the Athenians had a
great respect for Zeno, so that they gave him the keys of their
walls, and they also honoured him with a golden crown, and a
brazen statue ; and this was also done by his own countrymen,
who thought the statue of such a man an honour to their city.
And the Gittiasans, in the district of Sidon, also claimed him as
their countryman.
VIII. He was also much respected by Antigonus, who,
whenever he came to Athens, used to attend his lectures, and
was constantly inviting him to come to him. But he begged
off himself, and sent Perseeus, one of his intimate friends, who
was the son of Demetrius, and a Cittisean by birth, and who
flourished about the hundred and thirtieth olympiad, when
Zeno was an old man. The letter of Antigonus to Zeno waa
as follows, and it is reported by Apollonius, the Syrian, in
his essay on Zeno.
KING ANTIGONUS TO ZENO THE PHILOSOPHER, GBEETINO.
" I think that in good fortune and glory I have the advan-
tage of you ; but in reason and education I am inferior to you,
and also in that perfect happiness which you have attained to.
On which account I have thought it good to address you, and
invite you to come to me, being convinced that you will not
refuse what is asked of you. Endeavour, therefore, by all
means to come to me, considering this fact, that you will not
be the instructor of me alone, but of all the Macedonians
together. For he who instnicts the ruler of the Macedonians,
and who leads him in the path of virtue, evidently marshals
all his subjects on the road to happiness. For as ^e ruler is,
so is it natural that his subjects for the most part should be
also."
And Zeno wrote him back the following answer.
d62 LIVES OF KMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
ZENO TO KINO ANTIOONUS, GBEETINO.
" I admire your desire for learning, as being a true object
for the wishes of mankind, and one too that tends to their
advantage. And the man who aims at the study of philosophy
has a proper disregard for the popular kind of instruction
which tends only to the corruption of the morals. And you,
passing by the pleasure which is so much spoken of, which
makes the minds of some young men effeminate, show plainly
that you are inclined to noble pursuits, not merely by your
nature, but also by your own deliberate choice. And a noble
nature, when it has received even a slight degree of training,
and which also meets with those who will teach it abundantly,
proceeds without difficulty to a perfect attainment of virtue.
But I now find my bodily health impaired by old age, for I
am eighty .years old : on which account I am unable to come
to you. But I send you some of those who have studied vdth
me, who in that learning which has reference to the soul, are
in no respect inferior to me, and in their bodily vigour are
greatly my superiors. And if you associate with them you
will want nothing that can bear upon perfect happiness."
So he sent him Persseus and Philonides, the Theban, both
of whom are mentioned by Epicurus, in his letter to his
brother Aristobulus, as being companions of Antigonus.
IX. And I have thought it worth while also to set down the
decree of the Athenians concerning him ; and it is couched in
the following language.
"In the archonship of Arrhenides, in the fifth presidency of
the tribe Acamantis, on the twenty-first day of the month
Maimacterion, on the twenty- third day of the aforesaid
presidency, in a duly convened assembly, Hippo, the son of
Cratistoteles, of the borough of Xypetion, being one of the
presidents, and the rest of the presidents, his colleagues, put
the following decree to the vote* And the decree was pro-
posed by Thrason, of Anacaea, the son of Thrasou.
*' Since Zeno the son of lunaseas, the CittisBan, has passed
many years in the city, in the study of philosophy, being in
all other respects a good man, and also exhorting all the
young men who have sought his company to the practice of
virtue, and encouraging them in the practice of temperance ;
making his own life a model to all men of the greatest
ZBKO. 263
excellence, since it has in everj respect corresponded to the
doctrines which he has taught ; it has heen determined hj the
people (and may the determination be fortunate), to praise
Zeno, the son of Innaseas, the Cittisean, and to present him
with a golden crown in accordance with the law» on account of
his virtue and temperance, and to build him a tomb in
the Ceramicus, at the public expense. And the people has
appointed by its vote five men from among the citizens of
Athens, who shall see to the making of the crown and the
building of the tomb. And the scribe of the borough shall
enrol the decree and engrave it on two pillars, and he shall be
permitted to place one pillar in the Academy, and one in the
Lyceum. And he who is appointed to superintend the work
slmll divide the expense that the pillars amount to, in such a
way that every one may understand that the whole people of
Athens honours good men both while they are living and after
they are dead. And Thrason of Anacsea, Philocles of the
Piraeus, Phaedrus of Anaphlystos, Medon of Achamces, Mecy-
thus of Sypalyttas, and Dion of Peeania, are hereby appointed
to superintend the building of the tomb.'*
These then are the terms of the decree*
X. But Antigonus> of Carystos, says, that Zeno himself
never denied, that he was a native of Gittium. For that when
on one occasion, there was a citizen of that town who had
contributed to the building of some baths, and was having his
name engraved on the pillar, as the countryman of Zeno the
philosopher, he bade them add, " Of Gittium/*
XI. And at another time, when he had had a hollow
covering made for some vessel, he carried it about for some
money, in order to procure present relief for some difficulties
which were distressing Grates his master. And they say that
he, when he first amved in Greece, had more than a thousand
talents, which he lent out at nautical usury.
XII. And he used to eat little loaves and honey, and to
drink a small quantity of sweet smelliag wine.
XIII. He had very few youthful acquaintances of the male
sex, and he did not cultivate them much, lest he should be
thought to be a misogynist. And he dwelt in the same house
with Persaeus ; and once, when he brought in a female flute-
player to him, he hastened to bring her back to him.
XIY. And he was, it is said, of a very accommodating
804 LIVES OF EHONENT PHIl40S0|*HEBS»
temper ; so mucli so, that Antigonus, the king, often came to
dine with him, and often carried him off to dine with him, at
the house of Aristocles the harp-player; but when he was
there, he would presently steal away,
XV . It is also said that he avoided a crowd with great care,
80 that he used to sit at the end of a bench, in order at aU
events to avoid being incommoded on one side. And he never
used to walk with more than two or three companions. And
he used at times to exact a piece of money from all who came
to hear him, with a view of not being distressed by numbers ;
and this story is told by Cleanthes, in his treatise on Brazen
Money. And when he was surrounded by any great crowd, he
would point to a balustrade of wood at the end of the colonnade
which surrounded an altar, and say, ^' That was once in the
middle of this place, but it was placed apart because it was in
people's way ; and now, if you will only withdraw from the
nuddle here, you too will incommode me much less."
XYI. And when Pemochares, the son of Laches, embraced
him onc^ and said that he would tell Antigonus, or write to
him of everything which he wanted, as he idways did every-
thing for him, Zeno, when he had heard him say this, avoided
his company for the future. And it is said, that after the
death of Zeno, Antigonus said, '^ What a spectacle have I lost.*'
On which account he employed Thrason, their ambassador, to
entreat of the Athenians to allow him to be bmried in the
Ceramicus. And when he was asked why he had such an
admiration for him, he replied, " Because, though I gave him a
great many important presents, he was never elated, and never
humbled.*'
XYII. He was ^ man of a very investigating ^irit, and
one who inquired vexy minutely into eveiything ; in reference
po which, Timon, in his Silli, speaks thus :-i^
I saw an aged womain of Fhoanioia,
Hungry and covetous, in a proud obscurity.
Longing for everything. She had a basket
So full of holes that it retained nothing.
Likewise her mind was less than a simdapsus.*
He used to study very careftiUy with Philo, the dialectician,
and to argue with him at their mutual leisure; on which
* A sort of gnitar or violin.
ZSNO. 265
account he excited the wonder of the younger Zeno, no less
than Diodorus his master.
XVIII. There were also a lot of dirty beggars always about
him, as Timon tells us, where he says : —
Till he collected a vast doud of beggars,
Who were of all men in the world the poorest^
And the most worthless citizens of Athens.
And he himself was a man of a morose and bitter countenance,
with a constantly frowning expression. He was very economical,
and descended even to the meanness of the barbarians, under
the pretence of economy,
XIX. If he reproved any one, he did it with brevity and
without exaggeration, and as it were, at a distance. I allude,
for instance, to the way in which he spoke of a man wh(5 took
exceeding pains in setting himself off, for as he was crossing a
gutter with great hesitation, he said, " He is right to look
down upon the mud, for he cannot see himself in it." And
when some Cynic one day &aid that he had lio oil in his cruise,
and asked him for some, he refused to give him any, but bade
him go away and consider which of the two was the more im-
pudent. He was very much in love with Chremonides ; and
once, when he and Cleanthes were both sitting by him, he got
up ; and as Cleanthes wondered at this, he said, *' J hear from
skilful physicians that the best thing for some tumours is rest.'*
Once, when two people were sitting above him at table at a
banquet, and the one next him kept kicking the other with his
foot, he himself kicked him with his knee ; and when he turned
round upon him for doing so, he said, " "Why then do you
think that your other neighbour is to be treated in this way by
you ? "
On one occasion he said to a man who was very fond of
young boys, that ** Schoolmasters who were always associating
with boys had no more intellect than the boys themselves."
He used also to say that the discourses of those men who were
careful to avoid solecisms, and to adhere to the strictest rules
of composition, were like Alexandrine money, they were pleas-
ing to the eye and well-formed like the coni, but were'nothing
the better for that ; but those who were not so particular he
likened to the Attic tessedrachmas, which were struck at
random and without any great nicety, and so he said that their
266 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOFHEBS.
discourses often outweighed the more polished styles of the
others. And when Aiiston, his disciple, had heen holding
forth a good deal without much wit, but still in some points
with a good deal of readiness and confidence, he said to him,
'* It would be impossible for you to speak thus, if your father
bad not been drunk when he begat you ; " and for the same
reason he nicknamed him the chatterer, as he himself was very
concise in his speeches. Once, when he was in company with
an epicure who usually left nothing for his messmates, and
when a large fish was set before him, he took it all as if he
could eat the whole of it ; and when the others looked at him
with astonishment, he said, " What then do you think that
your companions feel every day, if you cannot bear with my
gluttony for one day ? "
On one occasion, when a youth was asking him questions
with a pertinacity unsuited to his age, he led him to a looking-
glass and bade him look at himself, and then asked him
whether such questions appeared suitable to the face he saw
there. And when a man said before him once, that in most
points he did not agree with the doctrines of Antisthenes, he
quoted to him an apophthegm of Sophocles, and asked him
whether he thought there was much sense in that, and when he
said that he did not know, ^' Are you not then ashamed," said
he, " to pick out and recollect anything bad which may have
been said by Antisthenes, but not to regard or remember what-
ever is said that is good ? " A man once said, that the say-
ings of the philosophers appeared to him very trivial ; " You say
true," replied Zeno, " and their syllables too ought to be short,
if that is possible." When some one spoke to him of Polemo,
and said that he proposed one question for discussion and then
argued another, he became angry, and said, " At what value
did he estimate the sulject that had been proposed ? " And
he said that a man who was to discuss a question ought to
have a loud voice and great energy, like the actors, but not to
open his mouth too wide, which those who speak a great deal
but only talk nonsense usually do. And he used to say that
there was no need for those who argued well to leave their
hearers room to look about them, as good workmen do who
want to have their work seen ; but that, on the contrary, those
who are listening to them ought to be so attentive to all that
is said as to have no leisure to take notes.
ZENO. 267
Once when a young man was talking a great deal, he said,
" Your ears have run down into your tongue." On one occa-
sion a very handsome man was saying that a wise man did not
appear to him likely to fall in love ; " Then," said he, " I can-
not imagine anything that will he more miserahle than you
good-looking fellows." He also used often to say that most
philosophers were wise in great things, but ignorant of petty
subjects and chance details ; and he used to cite the saying of
Oaphesius, who, when one of his pupils was labouring hard to
be able to blow very powerfully/ gave him a slap, and said,
that excellence did not depend upon greatness, but greatness
on excellence. Once, when a young man was arguing very
confidently, he said, " I should not like to say, 0 youth, all
that occurs to me." And once, when a handsome and wealthy
Rhodian, but one who had no other qualification, was pressing
him to take him as a pupil, he, as he was not inclined to re-
ceive him, first of all made him sit on the dusty seats that he
might dirt his cloak, then he put him do^Tn in the place of the
poor that he might rub against their rags, and at last the young
man went away. One of his sayings used to be, that vanity
was the most unbecoming of all things, and especially so in the
young. Another was, that one ought not to try and recollect
the exact words and expressions of a discourse, but to fix all
one's attention on the arrangement' of the arguments, instead
of treating it as if it were a piece of boiled meat, or some deli-
cate eatable. He used also to say that young men ought to
maintain the most scrupulous reserve in their walking, their
gait, and their dress ; and he was constantly quoting the lines
of Euripides on Gapaneus, that —
His wealth was ample.
But yet no pHde did mingle with his state,
Nor had he haughty thought, or arrogance,
More than the poorest man.
And one of his sayings used to be, that nothing was more
unfriendly to the comprehension of the accurate sciences than
poetry ; and that there was nothing that we stood in so much
need of as time. When he was asked what a friend was, he
replied, " Another I." They say that he was once scourging
a slave whom he had detected in theft ; and when he said to
him, " It was fated that I should steal ; " he rejoined, " Yes,
and that you should be beaten." He used to call beauty the
368 LIVES OF EMINENT FHILOSOPHEBS.
flower of the Toice ; but some report this as if he had said that
the voice is the flower of beauty. On one occasion, when he
saw a slave belonging to one of his friends severely bruised,
he said to his friend, '' I see the footsteps of your anger." He
once accosted a man who was all over unguents and peifumes,
" Who is this who smells like a woman ?" When Dionysius
Metathemenus asked him why he was the only peisan whom
he did not correct, he repUed, " Because I have' no confldence
in you.'* A young man was talking a great deal of nonsense,
and he said to him, ** This is the reason why we have two ears
and only one mouth, that we may hear more and speak less."
Once, when he was at an entertainment and remained
wholly silent, he was asked what the reason was ; and so he
bade the person who found fault with him tell the king that
there vras a man in the room who knew how to hold his tongue ;
now the people who asked him this were ambassadors who had
come from Ptolemy, and who wished to know what report they
were to make of him to the king. He was once asked how he
felt when people abused him, and he said, " As an ambassador
feels when he is sent away without an answer." Apollonius oi
Tyre tells us, that when Crates dragged him by the doak away
from Stilpo, he said, *' 0 Crates, the proper way to. take hold
of philosophers is by the ears ; so now do you convince me and
drag me by them ; but if you use force towards me, my body
may be with you, but my mind with Stilpo."
XX. He used to devote a good deal of time to Diodorus, as
we learn from Hippobotus; and he studied dialectics under
him. And when he had made a good deal of progress he
attached himself to Polemo because of his freedom from arro^
gance, so that it is reported that he said to him, *' I am not
ignorant, 0 Zeno, that you slip into the garden-door and steal
my doctrines, and then clothe them in a Phoenician dress."
When a dialectician once showed him seven specieaof dialectic
argument in the mowing argument,* he asked him how much
he charged for them, and when he said '* A hundred drachmas,"
he gave him two hundred, so exceedingly devoted wa& he to
learning.
XXI. They say too, that he was the first who ever em-
* The Greek is, Iv rtf OtpiZovri \6yta, a species of argument so
called, because he who used it mowed or knotted down his advena-
riese. — ^Aldob.
ZENO. S69
ployed the word duty (xa^^xov), and who wrote a treatise on
the subject. And that he altered the lines of Hesiod
thus: —
He is the best of all men who submita
To follow good adYioe ; he too is good.
Who of himself perceives whatever is fit.*
For he said that that man who had the capacity to give a
proper hearing to what was said, and to avail himself of it,
was superior to him who comprehended everything by his
own intellect ; for that the one had only comprehension, but
the one who took good advice had action also.
XXII. When he was asked why he, who was generally
austere, relaxed at a dinner party, he said, " Lupins too are
bitter, but when they are soaked they become sweet.^* And
Hecaton, in the second book of his Apophthegms, says, that
in entertaiments of that kind, he used to indulge himself
freely. And he used to say that it was better to trip with
the feet, than with the tongue. And that goodness was
attained by little and Httle, but was not itself a small thing.
Some authors, however^ attribute this saying to Socrates.
XXIII. He was a person of great powers of abstinence
and endurance; and of very simple habits, living on food
which required no fire to^ dress it, and wearing a thin cloak,
so that it was said of him :*—
The cold of winter, and the ceaseless rain,
Come powerless against him ; weak is the dart
Of the fierce summer sun, or fell disease,
To bend that iron firame. He stands apart)
In nought resembling the vast common crowd ;
But, patient and unwearied, night and day,
Clings to his studies and philosophy. ^
* The Greek in the text is : —
KttvoQ fiiv vavdptm'OQ Bg c^ tlirSvti iriOiir<u,
'EoBXbe ^ ad K&KtXvoc Sc a^rdc wdvra potiay.
The lines in Hesiod are : —
Kf ivoc fi^v iraifdpuiroQ 3c aitrhc ir&vra vo^<ry
'EffOXbe ^ ai cacciyoc 8c n^ liirSvri friOrjTaL'-'Op. E. Di. 293.
That man is best, whose unassisted wit
Perceives at once what in each case is fit.
And next to him, he surely is most wise, ^
Who willingly submits to good advice.
B
270 LIVES OF SMINENT PHILOSOPHEIUS.
XXIV. And the comic poets, without intending it, praise
him in their very attempts to turn him into ridicule. Philemon
speaks thus of him in his play entitled the Philosophers : —
Thii man adopte a new philosophy,
He teaches to be hungry ; nevertheleflSy •
He gets disciples. Br^id his only food,
His best desert dried figs ; water his drink.
But some attribute these lines to Posidippus. And. they
have become almost a proverb. Accordingly it used to be
said of him, ** More temperate than Zeno the philosopher."
Posidippus also writes thus in his Men Transported; —
So that for ten whole days he did appear
More temperate than Zeno's sell
XXV. For in reality he did surpass all men in this descrip-
tion of virtue, and in dignity of demeanour, and, by Jove, in
happiness. For he lived ninety-eight years, and tlien died,
without any disease, and continuing in good health to the
last. But Pei'saeus, in his Ethical School, states that he died
at the age of seventy-two, and that he came to Athens when
he was twenty-two years old. But Apollonius says that he
presided over his school for forty-eight years.
XXVI. And he died in the following manner. When he
was going out of his school, he tripped, and broke one of his
toes ; and striking the ground with his hand, he repeated the
line out of the Niobe :-^
I come : why call me so ?
And immediately he strangled himself, and so he died. But the
Athenians buried him in the Ceramicus, and Ubnoured him
with the decrees which { have mentioned before, bearing
witness to his virtue. And Antipater, the Sidonian, wrote an
inscription for him, which runs thus :—
Here Cittium's pride, wise Zeno, lies, who dimb'd
The snmits of Olympus ; but unmoved
By wicked thoughts ne'er strove to raise on Ossa
The pine-clad Pelion ; nor did he emulate
Th' immortal toils of Hercules ; but found
A new way for himself to th' highest heaven.
By virtue, temperance, and modesty.
And Zenodotus, the Stoic, a disciple of Diogenes, wrote
another : —
ZENO. 271
Tou made contentment the chief rule of life,
Despifling haughty wealth, 0 Qod-like Zeno.
With solemn lool^ and hoary brow serene,
Tou taught a manly doctrine ; and didst found
By your deep wisdom, a great novel school,
Chai9te parent of unfearing liberty.
And if your country was Phoenicia,
Why need we grievei from that land Cadmus came.
Who gave to Greece her writteii books of wisdom.
And Athenseus, the Epigrammatic poet, speaks thus of all
the Stoics in common : —
0, ye who've leamt the doctrines of the Porch,
And have committed to your hook^ divine
The best of human learning ; teaching men
That the mind's virtue is the only good.
And she it is who keeps the lives of men,
And cities, safer than high gates or walls.
But those who place their happiness in pleasure
Are led by the least worthy of the Muses.
And we also have ourselves spoken of the manner of Zeno's
death, in our collection of poems in all metres, in the follow-
ing terms : —
Some say that Zeno, pride of Cittium,
Died of old age, when weak and quite woni out ;
Some say that famine's cruel tooth did slay him ;
Some that he fell, and striking hard the groimd.
Said, ** See, X come, why call me thus impatiently f
For some say that this was the way in which he died. And
this is enough to say concerning his death.
XXVII. But Demetrius, the Magnesian, says, in his essay
on People of the Same Name, that his father Innaseas often
came to Athens, as he was a merchant, and that he used to
bring back many of the books of the Socratic philosophers, to
Zeno, while he was still only a boy ; and that, from this cir-
cumstance, Zeno had already become talked of in his own
country ; and that in consequence of this he went to Athens,
where he attached himself to Crates. And it seems, he adds,
that it was he who first recommended a clear enunciation of
principles, as the best remedy for error. He is said, too, to
have been in the habit of swearing ** By Capers," as Socrates
swore " By the Dog."
XXVIII. Some, indeed, among whom is Cassius the
Sceptic, attack Zeno on many accounts, saying first of all that
he denounced the general system of education in vogue at the
S7$2 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
time, as useless, "which he did in the beginning of his Republic.
And in the second place, th^'t he used to call all who were not
virtuous, adversaries, and enemies, and slaves, and unfriendly
to one another, parents to their children, brethren to brethren,
and kinsmen to kinsmen ; and again, that in his Republic, he
speaks of the virtuous as the only citizens, and friends, and
relations, and ftee men, so that in the doctrine of the Stoic,
even parents and their children are enemies ; for they are
not wise. Also, that he lays down the principle of the com-
munity of women both in his Republic and in a poem of two
hundred verses, and teaches that neither temples nor courts of
law, nor gymnasia, ought to be erected in a city ; moreover,
that he writes thus about money, " That he does not think
that men ought to coin money either for purposes of traffic, or
of travelling." Besides all this, he enjoins men and women
to wear the same dress, and to leave no part of their person
uncovered.
XXIX. And that this treatise on the Republic is his work
we are assured by Ohrysippus, in his Republic. He also dis-
cussed amatory subjects in the beginning of that book of his
which is entitled the Art of Love. And in his Conversations
he writes in a similar manner.
Such are the charges made against him by Cassius, and also
by Isidorus, of Pergamus, the orator, who says that all the
unbecoming doctdnes and assertions of the Stoics were cut
out of their books by Athenodorus, the Stoic, who was the
curator of the library at Pergamus. And that subsequently
they were replaced, as Athenodorus was detected, and placed
in a situation of great danger; and this is sufficient to say
about those doctrines of his which were impugned.
XXX. There were eight different persons of the name of
Zeno. The first was the Eleatic, whom we shall mention
hereafter ; the second was this man of whom we are now
speaking ; the third was a Rhodian, who wrote a history of
his country in one book ; the fourth was a historian who wrote
an account of the expedition of Pyrrhus into Italy and Sicily ;
and also an epitome of the transactions between the Romans
and Carthaginians ; the fifth was a disciple of Chiysippus,
who wrote very few books, but who left a great number of
disciples ; the sixth was a physician of Hesophila, a very
shrewd man in intellect, but a very indifferent writer ; the
ZENO. \ Q73
seventh was a grammarian, who, besides other writings, has
left some epigrams behind him ; the eighth was a Sidonian by
descent, a philosopher of the Epicurean school, a deep thinker,
and very clear writer.
XXXI. The disciples of Zeno were very numerous. The
most eminent were, first of all, Persaeus, of Cittium, the scm of
Demetrius, whom some call a friend of his, but otliers describe
him as a servant and one of the amanuenses who were sent to-
him by Antigonus, to whose son, Halcymeus, he also acted as
tutor. And Antigonus once, wishing to make trial of him,
caused some false news to be brought to him that his estate
had been ravaged by the enemy ; and as he began to look
gloomy at this news, he said to him, ^* You see that wealth is^
not a matter of indifference."
The following works are attributed to him. One on Kingly
Power ; one entitled the Constitution of the Lacedsemonians ;
one on Marriage ; one on Impiety ; the Thyestes ; an Essay
on Love ; a volume of Exhortations ; one of Conversations ;
four of Apophthegms ; one of Beminiscences ; seven treatises,
the Laws of Plato.
The next was Ariston, of Chios, the son of Miltiades, who
was the first author of the doctrine of indifference ; then
Herillus, who called knowledge the chief good ; then Diony-
sius, who transferred this description to pleasure; as, on
account of the violent disease which he had in his eyes, he
could not yet bring himself to call pain a thing indifferent.
He was a native of Heraclea ; there was also Sphaerus, of the
Bosphorus ; and Cleanthes, of Assos, the son of Phanias, who
succeeded him in his school, and whom he used to liken to
tablets of hard wax, which are written upon with difficulty, but
wliich retain what is written upon them. And after Zeno's
death, SphaBrus became a pupil of Cleanthes. And we shall
speak of him in our account of Cleanthes.
These also were all disciples of Zeno, as we are told by
Hippobotus, namely : — Philonides, of Theles ; Callippus, of
Corinth ; Posidonius, of Alexandria ; Athenodorus, of Soli ;
and Zeno, a Sidonian.
XXXII. And I have thought it best to give a general
account of all the Stoic doctrines in the life of Zeno, because
he it was who was the founder of the sect.
He has written a great many books, of which I have already
T
274 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
given a list, in which he has spoken as no other of the Stoics
has. And his doctrines in general are these. But we will
enumerate them briefly, as we have been in the habit of doing
in the case of the other philosophers.
XXXIII. The Stoics divide reason according to philosophy,
into three parts; and say that one part relates to natural
philosophy, one to ethics, and one to logic. And Zeno, the
Citti»an, was the first who made this division, in his treatise
on Reason ; and he was followed in it by Chrysippus, in the
first book of his treatise on Reason, and in the first book of
his treatise on Natural Philosophy ; and also by ApoUodorus ;
and by Syllus, in the first book of his Introduction to the
Doctrines of the Stoics ; and by Eudromus, in his Ethical
Elements ; and by Diogenes, the Babylonian ; and Posidorus.
Now these divisions are called^ topics by ApoUodorus, species
by Chrysippus and Eudromus, and genera by all the rest.
And they compare philosophy to an animal, likening logic to
the bones and sinews, natural philosophy to the fleshy parts,
and ethical philosophy to the soul. Again, they compare it to
an egg ; calling logic the shell, and ethics the white, and
natural philosophy the yolk. Also to a fertile field ; in which
logic is the fence which goes round it, ethics are the fruit, and .
natural philosophy the soil, or the fruit-trees. Again, they
•compare it to a city fortified by walls, and regulated by reason ;
and then, as some of them say, no one part is preferred to
another, but they are all combined and united inseparably ;
and so thevMreat of them all in combination. But others
class logic first, natural philosophy second, and ethics third ;
as Zeno does in his treatise on Reason, and in this he is
followed by Chrysippus, and Archidemus, and Eudromus.
For Diogenes of Ptolemais begins with ethics ; but ApoUo-
dorus places ethics second; and Paneetius and Posidonius
begin with natural philosophy, as Phanias, the friend of
Posidonius asserts, in the first book of his treatise on the
School of Posidonius.
But Cleanthes says, that there are six divisions of reason
according to philosophy : dialectics, rhetoric, ethics, politics,
physics, and theology ; but others assert that these are not
divisions of reason, but of philosophy itself ; and this is the
opinion advanced by Zeno, of Tarsus, among others.
XXXIV. Some again say, that the logical division is
ZENO. 275
properly subdivided into two sciences, namely, rhetoric and
dialectics; and some divide it also into definitive species,
which is coversant with rules and tests ; while others deny the
propriety of this last division altogether, and argue that the
object of rules and tests is the discovery of the truth ; for it
is in this division that they explain the differences of repre-
sentations. They also argue that, on^the other side, the science
of definitions has equally for its object the discovery of truth,
since we only know things by the intervention of ideas. They
also call rhetoric a science conversant about speaking well
oonceming matters which admit of a detailed narrative ; and
dialectics they call the science of arguing correctly in discus-
sions which can be carried on by question and answer ; on
which account they define it thus : a knowledge of what is
true, and false, and neither one thing nor the other.
Again, rhetoric itself they divide into three kinds ; for one
description they say is concerning about giving advice, another
is forensic, and the third encomiastic ; and it is also divided
into several parts, one relating to the discovery of arguments,
one to style, one to the arrangement of arguments, and the
other to the delivery of the speech. And a rhetorical oration
they divide into the exordium, the nfiuration, the reply to the
statements of the adverse party, and the peroration.
XXXV. Dialectics, they say, is divided into two parts ; one
of which has reference to the things signified, the other to the
expression. That which has reference to the things signified
or spoken of, they divide again into the topic of things con-
ceived in the fancy, and into those of axioms, of perfect
determinations, of predicaments, of things alike, whether
upright or prostrate, of tropes, of syllogisms, and of sophisms,
which are derived either from the voice or from the things. And
these sophisms are of various kinds ; there is the false one,
the one which states facts, the negative, the sorites, and others
like these ; the imperfect one, the inexplicable one, the con-
clusive one, the veiled one, the homed one, the nobody, and
the mower.
In the second part of dialectics, that which has for its object
the expression, they treat of written language, of the different
parts of a discourse, of solecism and barbarism, of poetical
forms of expression, of ambiguity, of a melodious voice, of
music ; and some even add definitions, divisions, and diction.
T 2
'276 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHEBS,
They say that the most useful of these parts is the con-
sideration of syllogisms ; for that they show us what are the
things which are capable of demonstration, and that contributes
much to the formation of our judgment, and their arrangement
and memory give a scientific character to our knowledge.
They define reasoning to be a system composed of assumptions
and conclusions ; and syllogism is a syllogistic argument pro-
ceeding on them. Demonstration they define to be a method
by which one proceeds fi'om that which is more known to that
which is less. Perception, again, is an impression produced on
the mind, its name being appropriately borrowed from impres-
sions on wax made by a seal ; and perception they divide into
comprehensible and incomprehensible : Comprehensible, which
they call the criterion of facts, and which is produced by a real
object, and is, therefore, at the same time conformable to that
object; Incomprehensible, which has no relation to any real
object, or else, if it has any such relation, does not correspond
to it, being but a vague and indistinct representation.
Dialectics itself they pronounce to be a necessary science,
and a virtue which comprehends several other virtues under
its species. And the disposition not to take up one side of
an argument hastily, they defined to be a knowledge by which
we are taught when we ought to agree to a statement, and
when we ought to withhold our agreement. Discretion they
consider to be a powerful reason, having reference to what is
becoming, so as to prevent our yielding to an irrelevant argu-
ment. Irrefutability they define to be a power in an argument,
which prevents one from being drawn from it to its opposite.
Freedom from vanity, according to them, is a habit which
refers the perceptions back to right reason.
Again, they define knowledge itself as an assertion or
safe comprehension, or habit, which, in the perception of what
is seen, never deviates from the truth. And they say further,
that without dialectic speculation, the wise man cannot
be free from all error in his reasoning. For that that is
what distinguishes what is true from what is false, and which
easily detects those arguments which are only plausible, and
those which depend upon an ambiguity of language. And
without dialectics they say it is not possible to ask or answer
questions correctly. They also add, that precipitation in
denials extends to those things which are done, so that those
ZBNO. 277
who have not properly exercised their perceptions fall into
irregularity and thoughtlessness. Again, without dialectics,
the wise man cannot be acute, and ingenious, and wary, and
altogether dangerous as an arguer. For that it belongs to the
same man to speak correctly and to reason correctly, and to
discuss properly those subjects which are proposed to him, and
to answer readily whatever questions are put to him, all which
qualities belong to a man who is skilful in dialectics. This
then is a brief summary of their opinions on, logic.
XXXYI. And, that we may also enter into some more
minute details respecting them, we wijl subjoin what refers to
what they call their introductory science, as it is stated by
Diodes, of Magnesia, in his Excursion of Philosophers,
where he speaks as follows, and we will give his account word
for word.
The Stoics have chosen to treat, in the first place, of percep-
tion and sensation, because the criterion by which the truth of
facts is ascertained is a kind of perception, and because the
judgment which expresses the belief, and the comprehension,
and the understanding of a thing, a judgment which precedes
all others, cannot exist without perception. For perception
leads the way ; and then thought, finding vent in expressions,
explains in words the feelings which it derives from perception.
But there is a difference between ^avraffta and (f>dvra,<ffd>».
For ^dvrxiffia is a conception of the intellect, such as takes
place in sleep ; but (pavraffia is an impression, rwruaiSf pro-
duced on the mind, that is to say, an alteration, aXXo/<;a{r/(, as
Chrysippus states in the twelfth book of his treatise on the
Soul. For we must not take this impression to resemble that
made by a seal, since it is impossible to conceive that there
should be many impressions made at the same time on the
same thing. But pavrada is understood to be that which is im-
pressed, and formed, and imprinted by a real object, according
to a real object, in such a way as it could not be by any other
than a real object ; and, according to their ideas of the
^avraatCLi, some are sensible, and some are not. Those they
call sensible, which are derived by us from some one or more
senses; and those they call not sensible, which emanate
directly from the thought, as for instance, those which relate to
incorporeal objects, or any others which are embraced by
reason. Again, those which are sensible, are produced by a
278 UYEB OF EMINERT PHIL080FHEB&
real object, which imposes itself on the intelligeiice, and com-
pels its acquiescence ; and there are also some others, which are
simply apparent, mere shadows, which resemble those which
are produced bj real objects.
Again, these favra«rai ' are divided into rational and irra-
tional ; those which are rational belong to animals capable of
reason; those which are irrational to animals destitute of
reason. Those which are rational are thoughts ; those which
are irrational have no name ; bat are again subdivided into
artificial and not artifidaL At all events, an image is contem-
plated in a different light by a man skilful in art, from that
in which it is viewed by a man ignorant of art
By sensation, the Stoics understand a species of breath
which, proceeds from the dominant portion of the soul to the
senses, whether it be a sensible perception, or an organic dispo
sition, which, according to the notions of some of them, ia
crippled and vicious. They also call sensation the energy*
or active exerdse, of the sense. According to them, it is to
sensation that we owe our comprehension of white and black,
and rough and smooth : from reason, that we derive the
notions which result from a demonstration, those for instance
which have for their object the existence of Gods, and of
Divine Providence. For all our thoughts are formed either
by indirect perception, or by similarity, or analogy, or trans-
position, or combination* or opposition. By a direct percep-
tion, we perceive those things which are the objects of sense ;
by similarity, those which start from some point present to
our senses ; as, for instance, we form an idea of Socrates from
his likeness. We draw our conclusions by analogy, adopt-
ing either an increased idea of the thing, as of Tityus, or the
Cyclops ; or a diminished idea, as of a pigmy. So, too, the
idea of the centre of the world was one derived by analogy
from what we perceived to be the case of the smaller
spheres. We use transposition when we fancy eyes in a man's
breast; combination, when we take in the idea of a Centaur;
opposition, when we turn our thoughts to death. Some ideas
we also derive from comparison, for instance, from a comparison
of words and places.
There is also nature ; as by nature we comprehend what is
just and good. And privation, when for instance, we form a
notion of a man without hands. Such are the doctrines of
ZENO. 279
the Stoics, on the subject of phantasia, and sensation, and .
thought.
XXXVII. They say that the proper criterion of truth is
the comprehension, favraata ; that is to say, one vhich is
derived from a real object^ as Chrysippus asserts in the twelfth
book of his Physics ; and he is followed by Antipater and
Apollodorus. For Boethius leaves a great many criteria,
such as intellect, sensation, appetite, and knowledge; but
Chrysippus dissents from his view, and in the first book of
his treatise on Reason, says, that sensation and preconcep-
tion are the only criteria. And preconception is, according
to him, a comprehensive physical notion of general principles.
But others of the earlier Stoics admit right reason as one'
criterion of the truth ; for instance, this is the opinion of
Posidonius, and is advanced by him in his essay on Criteria.
XXXVIII. On the subject of logical speculation, there
appears to be a great unanimity among the greater part of the
Stoics, in beginning with the topic of the voice. Now voice
is a percussion of the air ; or, as Diogenes the Babylonian,
defines it, in his essay on the Voice, a sensation peculiar to
the hearing. The voice of a beast is a mere percussion of
the air by some impetus : but the voice of a man is articulate,
and is emitted by intellect, as Diogenes lays it down, and is
not brought to perfection in a shorter period than fourteen
years. And the voice is a body according to the Stoics ; for
so it is laid down by Archidemus, in his book on the Voice^
and by Diogenes, and Antipater, and also by Cbrysippus, in
the second volume of his Physics. For everything which
makes anything, is a body ; and the voice makes something
when it proceeds to those who hear from those who speak.
A word (Xf^/;), again, is, according to Diogenes, a voice
consisting of letters, as *' Day." A sentence (>j6yog) is a
significant voice, sent out by the intellect, as for instance, ** It
is day;" but dialect is a peculiar style imprinted on the
utterance of nations, according to their race ; and causes
varieties in the Greek language, being a sort of local habit, as
for instance, the Attics say ^akarra, and the lonians say
flfAs^. The elements of words are the twenty-four letters ;
and the word letter is used in a triple division of sense,
meaning the element itself, the graphical sign of the element,
and the name, as Alpha. There are seven vowels, a, i, )}, i,
0, v,u; six mutes, j3, 7, d, x, ^r, r. But voice is different from
280 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
a vord, because voice is a sound ; but a word is an articulate
sound. And a word difiPers from a sentence, because a sen-
tence is always significative of something, but a word by itself
has no signification, as for instance, ^r^t. But this is not
the case with a sentence. Again, there is a difference between
speaking and pronouncing ; the sounds are pronounced, but
what are spoken are things which are capable of being spoken
of.
XXXIX. Now of sentences there are five parts, as Dio-
genes tells us in his treatise on Voice ; and he is followed by
Chiysippus. There is the noun, the common noun, the verb,
the coi\junction, and the article. Antipater adds also quality,
in his treatise upon Words and the things expressed by them.
And a common noun (cr^tftj/o^/a) is, according to Diogenes, a
part of a sentence signifying a common quality, as for instance,
man, horse. But a noun is a part of a sentence signifying a
peculiar quality, such as Diogenes, Socrates. A verb is a part
of a sentence signifying an uncombined categorem, as Diogenes
(o Aioyivfii) or, as others define it, an element of a sentence,
devoid of case, signifying something compound in reference to
some person or persons, as, " I write," " I say." A conjunc-
tion is a part of a sentence destitute of case, uniting the divi-
sions of the sentence. An article is an element of a sentence,
having cases, defining the genders of nouns and their numbers ;
as 6, 4, rh, 0/, a/, ri^,
XL. The excellences of a sentence are five, — good Greek,
clearness, conciseness, suitableness, elegance. Good Greek
{'UXkfivi^fihi) is a correct style, according to art, keeping aloof
from any vulgar form of expression ; clearness is a style which
states that which is conceived in the mind in such a way that
it is easily known : conciseness is a style which embraces all
that is necessary to the clear explanation of the subject under
discussion; suitableness is a style suited to the subject;
elegance is a style which avoids all peculiarity of expression.
Of the vices of a sentence, on the other hand, barbarism is a
use of words contraiy to that in vogue amcmg the well-educated
Greeks ; solecism is a sentence incongruously put together.
XLI. A poetical expression is, as Posidonius defines it in
his introduction on Style, ** A metrical or rhythmical diction,
proceeding in preparation, and avoiding all resemblance to
prose." For instance, " The vast and boundless earth,"
** Th' expanse of heaven,** are rhythmical expressions ; and
ZBNO. 281
poetry is a collection of poetical expressions signifying some-
thing, containing an imitation of divine and human heings.
XLII. A definition is, as Antipater explains it in the ^rst
book of his treatise on Definitions, a sentence proceeding by
analysis enunciated in such a way as to give a complete idea ;
or, as Chrysippus says in his treatise on Definitions, it is the
explanation of an idea. Description is a sentence which, in a
figurative manner, brings one to a knowledge of the subject, or
it may be called a simpler kind of definition, expressing the
power of a definition in plainer language. Genus is a com-
prehending of many ideas indissolubly connected, as animal ;
for this one expression comprehends all particular kinds of
animals. An idea is an imagination of the mind which does
not express actually anything real, or any quality, but only a
quasi reality and a quad quality ; such, for instance, is the idea
of a liorse when a horse is not present. Species is ihat which
is comprehended under genus, as man is comprehended under
animal.
Again, that is the most general genus which, being a genus
itself, has no other genus, as the existent. And that is the
most special species, which being a species has no other species,
as, for instance, Socrates.
XLIII. The division of genus is a dissection of it into the
proximate species ; as, for instance, ** Of animals, some are
rational, others irrational." Contrary division is the dissection
of genus into species on the principle of the contrary ; so as to
be by a sort of negation ; as, for instance, " Of existent things^
some are good and some not good ; " and, " Of things which are
not good, some are bad and some indifferent." Partition is an
arrangement of a genus with reference to place, as Crinis says,
for instance, " Of goods, some have reference to the mind and
some to the body."
XLIV. Ambiguity (a/A^/jSoX/a) is an expression signifying
two or more things having an ordinary or a peculiar meaning,
according to the pronunciation, in such a way that more things
than one may be understood by the very same expression.
Take, for instance, the words auXjjr|/^ mwruKs, For you may
understand by them, a house has fallen down three times
(auXriT^/g 'rtrraxs), or, a female flute-player has fallen, taking
auXnirfig as synonymous with avXrir^/a.
LV. Dialectics are, as Posidonius explains them, the science
iiS'2 LIVES OF EMINENT PHII1QSOPHEB&
of what is true and fidse, and neither one or the other, and it is,
as Ghrysippus explains it^conyersant ahout words that signify and
things that are signified ; these then are the doctrines asserted
by the Stoics in ti^eir speculations on the subject of the Yoice.
XL VI. But in that part of dialectics which concerns things
and ideas signified, they treat of propositions, of perfect enun-
ciations, of judgments, of syllogisms, of imperfect enuncia-
tions, of -attributes and deficiences, and of both direct and
indirect categorems or predicaments.
XL VII. And they say that enunciation is the manifestation
of the ideal perception ; an^ these enunciations the Stoics pro-
nounce some to be perfect in themselves, and some to be defec-
tive; now those are defective, which furnish an incomplete sense,
as for instance, "He writes." For then we ask further, "Who .
writes?" But those are perfect in themselves, which give a
sense entirely complete, as for instance, " Socrates writes."
Accordingly, in the defective enunciations, categorems are
applied ; but in those which are perfect in themselves, axioms,
and syllogisms, and questions, and interrogations, are brought
into play. Now a categorem is something which is predicated
of something else, being either a thing which is added to one
or more objects, according to the definition of ApoUodorus, or
else a defective enunciation added to the nominative case, for
the purpose of forming a proposition.
Now of categorems, some are accidents . • . .* as for in-
stance, ** The sailing through a rock." .... And of cate-
gorems, some are direct, some indirect, and some neidier one
nor the other. Now those are correct, which are construed
with one of the oblique cases, in such a manner as to produce
a categorem, as for instance, " He hears, he sees, he con-
verses." And those are indirect, which are construed with
the passive voice, as for instance, " I am heard, I am seen."
* Huemer thinks (as indeed is evident) that something is lost here ;
and proposes to read the sentence thus : — TfSv Sk carifyooff^arafv rd
fiiv KtTi ovfifidfAara dtQ rb irXctv, olov Sa»cparf}( irXcc. rd ok vapavvfA-
pdpLara wc f ^ ^^d nirpaQ irXeti/. With reference to which passage,
Liddell and Scott, Or, Eng. Lex. voc vifiiPafiUf thus speak : '* avfAfiafta
. . . . as a philosophical term of the Stoic8^rari|y5pi|f»«t, a com-
plete predicament such as is an intransitiye verb : e. g, l^wKpdrric
ircpcirarei ; while an imperfect verb was regarded as an incomplete
predicament; e. g, Swicparct ficXct, and (»lled wapavvfAPafia^ or
vapaKartiyopiina,*'
ZENO 283
And those which are neither one nor the other, axe those which
are construed in a neutral kind of manner, as for instance,
** To think, to walk." And those are reciprocal, which are
among the indirect ones, with out heing indirect themselves.
Those are eflFects, m^fi/iara, which are such words as, " He
is shaved;'* for then, the man who is shaved, implies himself.
The oblique cases, are the genitive, the dative, and the
accusative.
XL VIII. An axiom, is that thing which is true, or false, or
perfect in itself, being asserted, or denied positively, as far as
depends upon itself ; as Chrysippus explains it in his Dialectic
Definitions ; as for instance, " It is day," " Dion is walking.'*
And it has received the name of axiom, a^tufia, because it is
either maintained, A^tovrai, or repudiated. For the man who
says, " It is day,** appears to maintain the fact of its being
day. If then it is day, the axiom put before one is true ; but
if it is not day, the axiom is false. And an axiom, a question,
and an interrogation^ differ from one another, and so does an
imperative proposition from one which is adjurative, or impre-
catory, or hypothetical, or appellative, or false. For that is
an axiom which we utter, when we affirm anything positively,
which is either true or fcdse. And a question is a thing com-
plete in itself, as also is an axiom, but which requires an
answer, as for instance, "Is it day?" Now this is neither
true nor false ; but, as ** It is day " is an axiom ; so is, " Is it
day ? '' a question. But an interrogation, ^-utf/^a, is a thing
to which it is not possible to make an answer symbolically, as
in the case of a question, i^tarri/Aa, saying merely " Yes," but
we must reply, " He does live in this place."
llie imperative proposition is a thing which we utter when
we give an order, as for instance this : —
Do you now go to the sweet stream of Inachus.*
The appellative proposition is one which is used in the
case in which, when a man says anything, he must address
somebody, as for instance : —
Atrides, glorious king of men,
Most mighty Agamemnon.t
A false judgment is a proposition, which, while it has at the
* This line is from the Inachus of Sophocles (one of his lost plays),
t Homer, Iliad IL 484.
284 LIVES OF EMINENT PHIL0S0PHEB8.
same time the appearance of a real jadgment. loses this
character by the addition, and under the influence of, some
particle, as for instance :
The Parthenon at least is beflEutifiiL
How like the herdsman is to Priam's sons.
There is also the dubitative proposition, which differs from
the judgment, inasmuch as it is always uttered in the form of
a doubt ; as for instance : —
Are not» then, grief and life two kindred states ? *
But questions, and interrogations, and things like these,
are neither true nor fedse, while judgments and propositions
are necessarily one or the other.
Now of axioms, some are simple, and others are not simple;
as Ghrysippus, and Archedemus, and Athenodorus, and Anti-
pater, and Crinis, agree in dividing them. Those are simple,
which consist of an axiom or proposition, which is not am-
biguous, (or of several ajdoms, or propositions of the same
character,) as for instance the sentence, '' It is day." And
those are not simple, which consist of an axiom or proposition
which is ambiguous, or of several axioms or propositions of
that character. Of an axiom, or proposition, which is am-
biguous, as " If it is day ; " of several axioms, or propositions
of that character, as, ** If it is day, it is light."
And simple propositions are divided into the affirmative,
the negative, the privative, the categorical, the definite, and
the indefinite ; those which are not simple, are divided into
the combined, and the adjunctive, the connected and the dis-
junctive, and the causal and the augmentative, and the dimi-
nutive. That is an affirmative proposition, " It is not day."
And the species of this is doubly affirmative. That again is
doubly affirmative, which is affirmative of an affirmative, as
for instance, ** It is not not day ; " for this amounts to, "It is
day." That is a negative proposition, which consists of a
negative particle and a categorem, as for instance, ** No one is
walking." That is a privative proposition which consists of a
privative particle and an axiom according to power, as "This
man is inhuman." That is a categorical proposition, which
consists of a nominative case and a categorem, as for in-
stance, ** Dion is walking." That is a definite ' proposition,
* This line is from the Citharista of Menander.
XBNO. 285
w'hich consists of a demonstratiye nomiDative case and a
categorem, as for instance, *' This man is walking." That is
ail indefinite one which consists of an indefinite particle, or
of indefinite particles, as for instance, '* Somebody is walk-
ing,'* " He is moving."
Of propositions which are not simple, the combined propo-
sition is, as Ohrysippus states, in his Dialectics, and Diogenes,
too, in his Dialectic Art ; that which is held together by the
copulative conjunction " if." And this conjunction professes
that the second member of the sentence follows the first, as
for instance, " If it is day, it is light." That which is adjunc-
tive is, as Crinis states in his Dialectic Art, an axiom which is
made to depend on the conjunction " since " (mw/), beginning
"with an axiom and ending in an axiom, as for instance, "Since
it is day, it is light." And this conjunction professes both that
the second portion of the proposition follows the first, and
the first is true. That is a connected proposition which is
connected by some copulative conjunctions, as for instance,
•* It both is day, and it is light." That is a disjunctive pro-
position which is disconnected by the disjunctive conjunction,
'*or" (jjVo/,) as for instance, " It is either day or night." And
this proposition professes that one or other of these proposi-
tions is false. That is a causal proposition which is connected
by the word, "because;" as for instance, ** Because it is day, it
is light*' For the first is, as it were, the cause of the second.
That is an augmentative proposition, which explains the
greater, which is construed with an augmentative particle,
and which is placed between the two members of the pro-
position, as for instance, " It is rather day than night." The
diminutive proposition is, in every respect, the exact contrary
of the preceding one ; as for instance, " It is less night than
day." Again, at times, axioms or propositions are opposed to
one another in respect of their truth and falsehood, when one
is an express denial of the other; as for instance, " It is day,**
and, " It is not day."
Again, a conjunctive proposition is correct, when it is such
that the opposite of the conclusion is contradictory of the
premiss; as for instance, the proposition, **If it is day, it is
light,** is true ; for, " It is not light," which is the opposite to
the conclusion expressed, is contradictory to the premiss, •* It
is day.*' And a conjunctive proposition is incorrect, when it
288 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPUERd.
is such that the opposite of the conclusion is not inconsistent
with the premiss, as for instance, *' If it is day, Dion is walk-
ing." For the fact that Dion is not walking, is not contra-
dictory of the premiss, " It is day.**
An adjunctive proposition is correct, which begins with a
true premiss, and ends in a consequence which follows of
necessity, as for instance, *' Since it is day, the sun is above
the earth." But it is incorrect when it either begins with a
false premiss, or ends with a consequence which does not fol-
low properly ; as for instance, " Since it is night, Dion is
walking," for this may be said in the day-time.
A causal proposition is correct, when it begins with a true
premiss, and ends in a consequence which necessarily follows
from it, but yet does not have its premiss reciprocally con-
sequent upon its conclusion ; as for instance, *' Because it is
day, it is light." For the fact of its being light, is a neces-
sary consequence of its being day ; but the fact of its being
day, is not necessarily a consequence of its being light. A
causal proposition is incorrect, which either begins with a fulse
premiss, or ends with a conclusion that does not follow from
it, or which has a premiss which does not correspond to the
conclusion ; as for instance, '* Because it is night, Dion is
walking.**
A proposition is persuasive, which leads to the assent of
the mind, as for instance, ** If she brought him forth, she is
his mother." But still this is a falsehood, for a hen is not
the mother of an egg. Again, there are some propositions
which are possible, and some which are impossible ; and some
which are necessary, and some which are not necessary. That
is possible, which is capable of being true, since external cir-
cumstances are no hindrance to its being true; as for instance,
" Diodes lives. " And that is impossible which is not capable
of being true ; as for instance, " The earth flies." That is
necessary which, beii^ true, is not capable of being fiedse ; or
perhaps is intrinsically capable of being false, but still has ex-
ternal circumstances which hinder its being false, as for
instance, " Virtue profits a man." That again, is not neces-
sary, which is true, but which has a capacity of being false,
though external circumstances offer no hindrance to either
alternative ; as for instance, " Dion walks.**
That is a reasonable or probable proposition, which has a
7EN0. 287
great preponderance of opportunities in favour of its being
true ; as for instance, *' I shall be alive to-morrow." And
there are other different kinds of propositions and conversions
of them, from true to false, and re-conversions again ; con-
cerning which we must speak at some length.
XLIX. An argument, as Crinis says, is that which is com-
posed of a lemma or m^or premiss, an assumption or minor
premiss, and a conclusion ; as for instance this, ** If it is day,
it is light;" " But it is day, therefore it is light." For the
lemma, or major premiss, is, " If it is day, it is light." The
assumption, or minor premiss, is, "It is day." The conclusion
follows, " Therefore it is light." The mode of a proposition
is, as it were, a figure of an argument, as for instance, such as
this, "If it is the first, it is the second ; but it is the first,
therefore it is the second."
A conditional syllogism is that which is composed of both
the preceding arguments ; as for instance, " If Plato is alive,
Plato breathes ; but the first fact is so, therefore so is the
second." And this conditional syllogism has been introduced
for the sake, in long and complex sentences, of not being
forced to repeat the assumption, as it was a long one, and also
the conclusion ; but of being able, instead, to content one's
self with summing it up briefly thus, ** The first case put is
true, therefore so is the second."
Of arguments, some are conclusive, others are inconclusive.
. Those are inconclusive which' are such, that the opposite of
the conclusion drawn in them is not necessarily incompatible
with the connection of the premisses. As for instance, such
arguments as these, " If it is day, it is light ; but it is day,
therefore, Dion is walking." But of conclusive arguments,
some are called properly by the kindred name conclusions,
and some are called syllogistic arguments. Those then are
syllogistic which are either such as do not admit of demonstra-
tion, or such as are brought to an indemonstrable conclusion,
according to some one or more propositions ; such for instance
as the following : ** If Dion waUis, then Dion is in motion."
Those are conclusive, which infer their conclusion specially,
and not syllogistically ; such for instance, as this, " The
proposition it is both day and night is false. Now it is day ;
therefore, it is not night."
Those again, are unsyllogistic arguments which have an air
a88 LIVES OP EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
of probability about tbem, and a resemblance to syllogistic
ones, but which still do not lead to the deduction of proper
conclusions. As for instance, " If Dion is a horse, Dion is an
animal ; but Dion is not a horse, therefore, jDion is not an
animal."
Again, of arguments, some are true, and some are false.
Those are true which deduce a conclusion from tpie premisses,
as, for instance, " If virtue profits, then vice iiyures." And
those are false which have some falsehood in their premisses,
or which are inconclusive ; as, for instance, " If it is daj, it is
light ; but it is day, therefore, Dion is alive."
There are also arguments which are possible, and others
which are impossible ; some likewise which are necessary, and
others which are not necessary. There are too, some which
are not demonstrated from their not standing in need of
demonstration, and these are laid down differently by different
people ; but Chrysippus enumerates five kinds, which serve as
the foundation for every kind of argument; and which are
assumed in conclusive arguments properly so called, and in
syllogisms, and in modes.
The first kind that is not demonstrated, is that in which the
whole argument consists of a conjunctive and an antecedent ;
and in which the first term repeats itself so as to form a sort
of conjunctive proposition, and to bring forward as the conclu-
sion the last term. As, for instance, " If the first be true, so
is the second ; but the first is true, therefore, so is the second."
The second kind that is not demonstrated, is tiiat which, by
means of the conjunctive and the opposite of the conclusion,
has a conclusion opposite to the first premiss. As, for instance,
" If it be day, it is light ; but it is night, therefore it is not
day." For here the assumption arises from the opposite of
the conclusion, and the conclusion from the opposite of the
first term. The third kind that is not demonstrative, is that
which, by a negative combination, and by (me of the terms in
the proposition, produces the contradictory of the remainder ;
as, for instance, '* Plato is not dead and ahve at the same
time but Plato is dead ; therefore, Plato is not alive.'' The
fourth kind that is not demonstrative, is that which, by
means of a disjunctive, and one of those terms which axe in
the disjunctive, has a conclusion opposite to what remains ;
as, for instance, " It is either the first, or the second ; but it
ZENO. 289
is the first ; therefore, it is not the second." The fifth kind
that is not demonstrative, is that in which the whole argument
consists of a disjunctive proposition, and the opposite of one of
the terms, and then one makes the conclusion identical with
the remainder ; as, for instance, " It is either day or night ;
but it is not night ; therefore it is day."
According to the Stoics, truth follows upon truth, as " It is
light," follows upon ** It is day." And falsehood follows upon
falsehood ; as, " If it is false that it is night, it is also false that
it is dark." Sometimes too, truth follows from falsehood ; for
instance, though it is false that " the earth flies,'* it is true
that " there is the earth." But falsehood does never follow
from truth ; for, from the fact that ** there is the earth," it
does not follow " that the earth fliesi."
There are also some arguments which are perplexed, being
veiled and escaping notice ; or such as are called sorites, the
homed one, or the nobody. That is a veiled argument* which
resembles the following one ; " two are not a few, nor three,
nor those, nor four, and so on to ten ; but two are few ; there-
fore, so are ten few.'*
The nobody is a conjunctive argument, and one that consists
of the indefinite and the definite, and which has a minor pre-
miss and a conclusion ; as, for instance, ** If any one is here,
he is not in Rhodes."
L. Such then are the doctrines which the Stoics maintain
on the subject of logic, in order a^ far as possible to establish
their point that the logician is the only wise man. For they
assert that all afi&irs are looked at by means of that speculation
* It would appear that there is a considerable hiatus here ; for the
instance following is a sorites, and not a specimen of the veiled argu«
ment. And there is no instance given of the concealed, or of the
homed one. Still, the mere fact of the text being unintelligible, is far
from proving that we have not got it as Diogenes wrote it ; as though
in the language of the writer in Smith's Biographical Dictionary, vol.
i. pp. 1022, 1023, "the work contains a rich store of living features,
which serve to illustrate the private life of the Greeks," it is equally clear
that the author " was unequal to writing a history of Greek philosophy.
His work in reality is nothing but a compilation of the most hetero-
geneous and often contradictory accounts. .... The traces of
carelessness and mistakes are very numerous; much in the work is con-
fused, and there is also much that is quite absurd. And as far as philo-
sophy itself is concerned, Diogenes very frequently did not know what
he was talking about when he abridged the theories of the phUosophers."
u
SOO LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
which proceeds by argument, including under this assertion
both those that belong to natural and also those which belong
to moral philosophy : for, say they, how else could one deter-
mine the exact value of nouns, or how else could one explain
what laws are imposed upon such and such actions ? More-
over, as there are two habits both incidental to virtue, the one
considers what each existing thing is, and tbe other inquires
what it is called. These then are the notions of the Stoics on
the subject of logic.
LI. The ethical part of philosophy they divide into the topic
of inclination, the topic of good and bad, the topic of tiie
passions, the topic of virtue, ti^e topic of the chief good, and
of primary estimation, and of actions ; the topic of what things
are becoming, and of exhortation and dissuasion. And this
division is the one laid down by Chrysippus, and Archedemus,
and Zeno, of Tarsus, and Apollodorus, and Diogenes, and
Antipater, and Posidonius. For Zeno, of Cittium, and Clean-
thes, have, as being more ancient they were likely to, adopted
a more simple method of treating these subjects. But these
men divided logical and the natural philosophy.
LII. They say that the first inclination which an animal
has is to protect itself, as nature brings herself to take an
interest in it from the beginning, as Chrysipnus affirms in the
first book of his treatise on Ends ; where he says, that the
first and dearest object U> every animal is its ow^ existence,
and its consciousness of that existence. For that it is not
natural for any animal to be alienated from itself, or even to
be brought into such a state as to be indifferent to itself, being
neither alienated from nor interested in itself. It remains,
therefore, that we must assert that nature has bound the
animal to itself by the greatest unanimity and affection ;
for by that means it repels all that is injurious, and attracts
all that is akin to it and desirable. But as for what some
people say, that the first inclination of animals is to
pleasure, they say what is false. For they say that pleasure,
if there be any such tiling at all, is an accessory only, which,
nature, having sought it out by itself, as well as those things
which are adapted to its constitution, receives incidentally in
the same manner as animals are pleased, and plants made to
flourish.
Moreover, say they, nature makes no difference between
ZENO. 291
animals and plants, when she regulates them so as to leave
them without voluntary motion or sense ; and some things too
take place in ourselves in the same manner as in plants. But,
as inclination in animals tends chiefly to the point of making
them pursue what is appropriate to them, we may say that
their inclinations are regulated hy nature. And as reason is
given to rational animals according to a more perfect principle,
it follows, that to live correctly according to reason, is properly
predicated of those who live according to nature. For nature
is as it were the artist who produces the inclination.
LIII. On which account Zeno was the first writer who, in
his treatise on the Nature of Man, said, that the chief good was
confessedly to live according to nature ; which is to live ac-
cording to virtue, for nature leads us to this point. And in
like manner Cleanthes speaks in his treatise on Pleasure, and
so do Fosidonius and Hecaton in their essays on Ends as the
Chief Good. And again, to live according to virtue is the same
thing as living according to one's experience of those things
which happen by nature ; as Chiysippus explains it in the first
book of his treatise on the Chief Good. For our individual
natures are all parts of universal nature ; on which account the
chief good is to live in a manner corresponding to nature, and
that means corresponding to one's own nature and to universal
nature ; doing pone of &ose things which the common law of
-mankind is in the habit of forbidding, and that common law
is identical with that right reason which pervades everything,
being the same with Jupiter, who is the regulator and chief
manager of all existing things.
Again, this very thing is the virtue of the happy man and
the perfect happiness of life when everything is done according
to a harmony with the genius of each individual with reference
to the will of the universal governor and manager of all
things. Diogenes, accordingly, says expressly that the chief
good is to act according to sound reason in our selection of
things according to our nature. And Archidemus defines it to
be living in the discharge of all becoming duties. Chiysippus
again understands that the nature, in a manner corresponding
to which we ought to live, is both the common nature, and also
human nature in particular ; but Cleanthes will not admit of
any other nature than the common one alone, as that to which
people ought to live in a manner corresponding; and re-
292 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
pudktes all mention of a particular nature. And he asserts
that virtue is a disposition of the mind always consistent and
always harmonious ; that one ought to seek it out for its own
sake, without heing influenced hy fear or hope hy any external
influence. Moreover, that it is in it that happiness consists, as,
producing in the soul the harmony of a life always consistent
with itself; and that if a rational animal goes the wrong way,
it is because it allows itself to be misled by the deceitful
appearances of exterior things, or perhaps by the instigation
of those who surround it ; for nature herself never gives us any
but good inclinations.
LIY. Now virtue is, to speak generally, a perfection in
everything, as in the case of a statue ; whether it is invisible
as good health, or speculative as prudence. For Hecaton says,
in the first book of his treatise on Virtues, that the scientific
and speculative virtues are those which have a constitution
arising from speculation and study, as, for instance, prudence
and justice ; and that those which are not speculative are those
which are generally viewed in their extension as a practical
result or effect of the former ; such for instance, as health
and strength. Accordingly, temperance is one of the specu-
lative virtues, and it happens that good health usually follows
it, and is marshalled as it were beside it ; in the same way as
strength follows the proper structure of an arch. -^ And the
unspeculative virtues derive their name from the fact of their
not proceeding from any acquiescence reflected by intelli-
gence ; but they are derived from others, are only accessories,
and are found even in worthless people, as in the case of good
health, or courage. And Posidonius, in the first book of his
treaties on Ethics, says that the great proof of the reality of
virtue is that Socrates, and Diogenes, and Antisthenes, made
great improvement ; and the great proof of the reality of vice
may be found in the fact of its being opposed to virtue.
Agam, Chrysippus, in the first book of his treatise on the
Chief Good, and Gleanthes, and also Posidonius in his Ex-
hortations, and Hecaton, all agree that virtue may be taught.
And that they are right, and that it may be taught, is plain
from men becoming good after having been bad. On this
account PanaBtius teaches that there are two virtues, one
speculative and the other practical ; but others make three
kinds, the logical, the natural, and the ethical. Posidonius
2EK0. ^93
divides virtue into four divisions ; and Cleantbes, Chrysippus,
and Antipater make the divisions more numerous still ; for
Apollophanes asserts that there is but one virtue, namely,
prudence.
Among the virtues some are primitive and some are derived.
The primitive ones are prudence, manly courage, justice, and
temperance. And subordinate to these, as a kind of species
contained in them, are magnanimity, continence, endurance,
presence of mind, wisdom in council. And the Stoics define
prudence as a knowledge of what is good, and bad, and in-
different ; justice as a knowledge of what ought to be chosen,
what ought to be avoided, and what is indifferent ; magnanimity
as a knowledge of engendering a lofty habit, superior to all
such accidents as happen to all men indifferently, whether
they be good or bad ; continence they consider a disposition
which never abandons right reason, or a habit which never
yields to pleasure ; endurance they call a knowledge or habit
by which we understand what we ought to endui'e, what we
ought not, and what is indifferent ; presence of mind they
define as a habit which is prompt at finding out what is
suitable on a sudden emergency ; and wisdom in counsel they
think a knowledge which leads us to judge what we are to do,
and how we are to do it, in order to act becomingly. And
analogously^ of vices too there are some which are primary,
and some which are subordinate ; as, for instance, folly, and
cowardice, and injustice, and intemperance, are among the
primary vices ; incontinence, slowness, and folly in counsel
among the subordinate ones. And the vices are ignorance of
those things of which the virtues are the knowledge.
LV. Good, looked at in a general way, is some advantage,
with the more particular distinction, being partly what is actually
useful, partly what is not contrary to utility. On which account
virtue itself, and the good which partakes of virtue are spoken
of in a threefold view of the subject. First, as to what kind
of good it is, and from what it ensues ; as, for instance, in an
action done according to virtue. Secondly, as to the agent,
in the case of a good man who partakes of virtue.
f The third point of view is wanting; and those that are given
appear to be ill selected. The French translator, following the hmt of
294 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHEBS.
At another time, they define the good in a peculiar manner^
as being what is perfect according to the nature of a rational
being as rational being. And, secondly, they say that it is
conformity to yirtue, so that all actions which partake of
virtue, and all good men, are themselves in some sense the
good. And in Uie third place, they speak of its accessories,
joy, and mirth, and things of thsii kind. In the same manner
they speak of vices, which they divide into folly, cowardice,
injustice, and things of that kind. And they consider that
those things which partake of vices, and actions done according
to vice, and bad men, are themselves in some sense the evil ;
and its accessories are despondency, and melancholy, and other
things of that kind.
LVI. Again, of goods, some have reference to the mind,
and some are external ; and some neither have reference to
the mind, nor are external. The goods having reference to the
mind are virtues, and actions according to the virtues. The
external goods are the having a virtuous country, a virtuous
friend, and the happiness of one's country and fiiend. And
those which are not external, and which have no reference
to the mind, are such as a man*s being virtuous and happy to
himself. And reciprocally, of evils, some have reference to
the mind, such as tlie vices and actions according to them ;
some are external, such as having a foolish country, or a foolish
friend, or one's country or one's friend being unhappy. And
those evils which are not external, and which have no reference
to the mind, are such as a man's being worthless and unhappy
to himself.
LYII. Again, of goods, some are final, some are efficient,
and some are both final and efficient. For instance, a friend,
Huebner, gives the following passage from Sextus Empiricus (a physi-
cian of the Sceptic school, about B.O. 250), in his work against the
PhilosopherSy'^which he says may senre to rectify and complete the
statement of Diogenes Laertius. " Good is said in one sense of that
which produces the useful, or from which the useful results ; that is,
the good par excdlencef virtue. For virtue is as it were the source
from whi<& all utility naturally flows. In another sense it is said of
that which is accidentally the cause of utilily ; under this point of
view we call good not only virtue, but also those actions which are
conformable to virtue, fw- they are accidentally useful. In the third
and last place, we call good everything that possibly can be useful,
comprehending under this definition virtue, virtuous actions, friends,
good men, the Oods, &o,, &oJ*
ZEa^o. 295
and the services doue by him to one, are efficient goods;
but coui*age, and prudence, and liberty, and delight, and
mirth, and freedom from pain, and all kinds of actions done
according to virtue, are final goods. There are too, as I said
before, some goods v^hich are both efficient and final ; for
inasmuch as they produce perfect happiness they are efficient,
and inasmuch as they complete it by being themselves parts
of it, they are final. And in the same way, of evils, some are
final, and some efficient, and some partake of both natures.
For instance, an enemy and the injuries done to one by him,
are efficient evils ; fear, meanness of condition, slavery, v^ant
of delight, depression of spirits, excessive grief, and all actions
done according to vice, are final evils ; and some partake of
both characters, since, inasmuch as they produce perfect
unhappiness, they are efficient; and inasmuch as they complete
it in such a way as to become parts of it, they are final.
LVIII. Again, of the goods which have reference to the
mind, some are habits, some are dispositions, and some are
neither habits nor dispositions. Dispositions are virtues,
habits are practices, and those which are neither habits nor
dispositions are energies. And, speaking generally, the
following may be caUed mixed goods : happiness in one's
children, and a happy old age. But knowledge is a pure good.
And some goods are continually present, such as virtue ; and
some are not always present, as joy, or taking a walk.
LIX. But every good is expedient, and necessary, and
profitable, and useful, and serviceable, and beautifid, and
advantageous, and eligible, and just. Expedient, inasmuch as
it brings us things, which by their happening to us do us
good ; necessaiy, inasmuch as it assists us in what we have
need to be assisted ; profitable, inasmuch as it repays all the
care that is expended on it, and makes a return witli interest
to our great advantage ; useful, inasmuch as it supplies us
with what is of utility ; serviceable, because it does us service
which is much praised; beautiful, because it is in accurate
proportion to the need we have of it, and to the service it
does. Advantageous, inasmuch as it is of such a character as
to confer advantage on us ; eligible, because it is such that we
may rationally choose it ; and just, because it is in accordance
with law, and is an efficient cause of union.
And they call the honourable the perfect good, because it
296 LIVES OF EMINENT PHIL0S0PHEB8.
has naturally all the numbers which are required by nature,
and because it discloses a perfect harmony. Now, the species
of this perfect good are four in number : justice, manly courage,
temperance, and knowledge ; for in these goods all beautiful
actions have their accomplishment. And analogously, there
are also four species of the disgraceful : injustice, and cowardice,
and intemperance, and folly. And the honourable is predicated
in one sense, as making those who are possessed of it worthy
of all praise ; and in a second sense, it is used of what is weU
adapted by nature for its proper work ; and in another sense,
when it expresses that which adorns a man, as when we say
that the wise man alone is good and honourable.
The Stoics also say^ that the beautiful is the only good, aa
Hecaton says, in the third book of his treatise on Goods, and
Chrysippus asserts the same principle in his essays on the
Beautiful. And they say that this is virtue, and that which
partakes of virtue ; and this assertion is equal to the other,
that everything good is beautiful, and that the good is an
equivalent term to the beautiful, inasmuch as the one thing is
exactly equal to the other. For since it is good, it is beautiful ;
and it is beautiful, therefore, it is good.
LX. But it seems that all goods are equal, and that every
good is to be desired in the highest degree, and that it admits
of no relaxation, and of no extension. Moreover, they divide
all existing things into good, bad, and indifferent. The good
are the virtues, prudence, justice, manly courage, temperance,
and the rest of the like qualities. The bad are the contraries,
folly, injustice, and the like. Those are indifferent which are
neither beneficial nor injurious, such as life, health, pleasure,
beauty, strength, riches, a good reputation, nobility of birth ;
and their contraries, death, disease, labour, disgrace, weakness,
poverty, a bad reputation, baseness of birth, and the like ; as
Hecaton lays it down in the seventh book of his treatise on
the Chief G-ood ; and he is followed by Apollodorus, in his
Ethics, and by Chrysippus. For they affirm that those things
are not good but indifferent, though perhaps a little more near
to one species than to the other.
For, as it is the property of the hot to warm and not to
chill one, so it is the property of the good to benefit and not
to injure one. Now, wealth and good health cannot be said
to benefit any more than to injure any one : therefore, neither
2EN0. 297
wealth nor good health are goods. Again, they say that that
thing is not good which it is possible to use both well and ill.
But it is possible to make either a good or a bad use of wealth,
or of health; therefore, wealth and good health are not goods.
Posidonius, however, affirms that these things do come under
the head of goods. But Hecaton, in the nineteenth book of
his treatise on Goods, and Chrysippus, in his treatises on
. Pleasure, both deny that pleasure is a good. For they say
that there are disgraceful pleasures, and that nothing disgrace-
ful is good. And that to benefit a person is to move him or
to keep him according to virtue, but to injure him is to move
him or to keep him according to vice.
They also assert, that things indifferent are so spoken of in
a twofold manner ; firstly, those things are called so, which
have no influence in producing either happiness or unhappi-
ness ; such for instance, as riches, glory, health, strength, and
the like ; for it is possible for a man to be happy without any
of these things ; and also, it is upon the character of the use
that is made of them, that happiness or unhappiness depends.
In another sense, those things are called indifferent, which
do not exite any inclination or aversion, as for instance, the
fact of a man's having an odd or an even number of hairs on
his head, or his putting out or drawing back his finger ; for
it is not in this sense that the things previously mentioned
are called indifferent, for they do excite inclination or aver-
sion. On which account some of them are chosen, though
there is equal reason for preferring or shunning all tlie
others.
LXI. Again, of things indifferent, they call some pre-
ferred {'JT^QriyfihaX and others rejected (a^o^^ojjy/Asva). Those
are preferred, which have some proper value (a^/av), and those
are rejected, which have no value at all (a^a|/ay t^ovra).
And by the term proper value, they mean that quality of
things, which causes them to concur in producing a well-
regulated life ; and in this sense, every good has a proper
value. Again, they say that a thing has value, when in some
point of view, it has a sort of intermediate power of aiding us
to live conformably to nature ; and under this class, we may
range riches or good health, if they give any assistance to
natural life. Again, value is predicated of the price which
one gives for the attainment of an object, which some one.
298 LIVES OP EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
who has experience of)the object sought, fixes as its fair price ;
as if we were to say, for instance, that as some wheat was to
be exchanged for barley, with a mule thrown in to make up
the difference. Those goods then are preferred, which have a
value, as in the cose of the mental goods, ability, skill, im-
provement, and the like ; and in the case of the corporeal
goods, life, health, strength, a good constitution, soundness,
beauty; and .in the case of external goods, riches, glory,
nobility of birth, and the like.
Rejected things are, in the case of qualities of the mind,
stupidity, unskilfulness, and the like ; in the case of circum-
stances affecting the body, death, disease, weakness, a bad
constitution, mutilation, disgrace, and the like ; in the case
of external circumstances, poverty, want of reputation, ignoble
birth, and the like. But those qualities and circumstances
which are indifferent, are neither preferred nor rejected.
Again, of things preferred, some are preferred for their own
sakes, some for the sake of other things, and some partly for
their own sakes and partly for that of other things. Those
which are preferred for their own sakes, are ability, improve-
ment, and the like ; those which are preferred for the sake of
other things, are wealth, nobility of birth, and the hke ; those
which are preferred partly for their own sake, and partly for
that of something else, are strength, vigour of the senses,
universal soxmdness, and the hke ; for they are preferred, for
their own sakes, inasmuch as they are in accordance with
nature ; and for the sake of something else, inasmuch as
they are productive of no small number of advantages ; and
the same is the case in the inverse ratio, with those things
which are rejected.
LXII. Again, they say that that is duty, which is preferred,
and which contains in itself reasonable arguments why we
should prefer it ; as for instance, its corresponding to the
nature of life itself; and this argument extends to plants and
animals, for even their nature is subject to the obUgation of
certain duties. And duty (rh xatfgxov) had this name given to
it by Zeno, in the first instance, its appellation being derived
from its coming to, or according to some people, avb rou xard
Ttvag fi)ceiy ; and its effect is something kindred to the prepa-
rations made by nature. Now of the things done according
to inclination, some are duties, and some are contrary to
duty; and some are neither duties nor contrary to duty.
Those are duties, yfhich reason selects to do, as for instance,
to honour one*s parents, one's brothers, one's country, to
gratify one's friends. Those actions are contrary to duty,
which reason does not choose; as for instance, to neglect one*s
parents, to be indifferent to one's brothers, to shirk assisting
one's friends, to be careless about the welfare of one's country,
and so on. Those are neither duties, nor contrary to duty,
which reason neither selects to do, nor, on the other hand,
repudiates, such actions, for instance, as to pick up straw, to
hold a pen, or a comb, or things of that sort
Again, there are some duties which do not depend on cir-
cumstances, and some which dp. These do not depend on
circumstances, to take care of one's health, and of the sound
state of one's senses, and the like. Those which do depend
on circumstances, are the mutilation of one's members, the
sacrificing of one's property, and so on. And the case of
those actions which are contraiy to duty, is similar. Again,
of duties, some are always such, and some are not always.
What is always a duty, is to live in accordance with virtue ;
but to ask questions, to give, answers, to walk, and the like,
are not always duties. And the same statement holds good
with respect to acts contrary to duty.
There is also a class of intermediate duties, such as the
duty of boys obeying their masters.
LXIII. The Stoics also say that the mind is divisible into
eight parts ; for that the five organs of sensation, and the
vocal power, and the intellectual power, which is the mind
itself, and the generative power, are all parts of the mind.
But by error, there is produced a perversion which operates on
the intellect, from which many perturbations arise, and many
causes of inconstancy. And all perturbation is itself, accord-
ing to Zeno, a movement of the mind, or superfluous inclina-
tion, which is irrational, and contrary to nature. Moreover,
of the ^superior class of perturbations, as Hecaton says, in the
second book of his treatise on the Passions, and as Zeno
also s&js in his work on the Passions, there are four kinds,
grief, fear, desire, and pleasure. And they consider that
these perturbations are judgments, as Chiysippus contends in
his work on the Passions ; ^r covetousness is an opinion that
money is a beautiful object, and in like manner drunkenness
and intemperance, and other things of the sort, are judg-
300 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHEBS.
ments. And grief they define to be an irrational contraction
of the mind, and it is divided into the following species, pity,
envj, emulation, jealoasj, pain, perturbation, sorrow, anguish,
confusion. Pity is a grief over some one, on the ground of
bis being in undeserved distress. Envy is a grief, at the good
fortune of another. Emulation is a grief at that belonging to
some one else, which one desires one's self. Jealousy is a
grief at another also having what one has one's self. Pain is
a grief which weighs one down. Perturbation is grief which
narrows one, and causes one to feel in a strait. Sorrow is a
grief arising ^m deliberate thought, which endures for some
time, and gradually increases. Anguish is a grief with acute
pain. Confusion is an irrational grief, which frets one, and
prevents one from clearly discerning present circumstances.
But fear is the expectation of evil ; and the foUo^ng feelings
are all classed under the head of fear : apprehension, hesita-
tion, shame, perplexity, trepidation, and anxiety. Apprehen-
sion is a fear which produces alarm. Shame is a fear of dis-
credit Hesitation is a fear of coming activity. Perplexity
is a fear, from the imagination of some unusual thing. Tre-
pidation is a fear accompanied with an oppression of the voice.
Anxiety is a fear of some uncertain event.
Again, desire is an irrational appetite ; to which head, the
following feelings are referrible : want, hatred, contentiousness,
anger, love, enmity, rage. Want is a desire arising from our
not having something or other, and is, as it were, separated
from the thing, but is still stretching, and attracted towards it
in vain. And hatred is a desire Uiat it should be ill with
some one, accompanied with a certain continual increase and
extension. Contentiousness is a certain desire accompanied
with deliberate choice. Anger is a desire of revenge, on a
person who appears to have injured one in an unbecoming
way. Love is a desire not conversant about a virtuous object,
for it is an attempt to conciliate affectidn, because of some
beauty which is seen. Enmity is a certain anger of long
duration, and full of hatred, and it is a watchful passion, as is
shown in the following lines : —
For though we deem the shori-liv'd fury past,
'Tis mire the mighty will revenge at last. *
* Horn n. I. 81. Pope*s Version, 1. 105.
ZENO. 801
But rage is anger at its commencement.
Again, pleasure is an irrational elation of the mind over
something -which appears to he desirable; and its different
species are enjoyment, rejoicing at evil, delight, and extrava-
gant joy. Enjoyment now, is a pleasure which charms the
mind through the ears. Kejoicing at evil (l^r/p^a/^sxax/a), is a
pleasure which arises at the misfortunes of ofliers. Delight
(re^/g,) that is to say turning (r^f'^tg), is a certain turning of
the soul (flr^or^oflTj} rtg -vj/u^^s), to softness. Extravagant joy is
the dissolution of virtue. And as there are said to be some
sicknesses (a^Pfid(rr)]^ara,)in the body, as, for instance, gout and
arthritic disorders ; so too are those diseases of the soul, such as a
fondness for glory, or for pleasure, and other feelings of that sort.
For an d^'^djarrifia is a disease accompanied with weakness ;
and a disease is an opinion of something which appears ex-
ceedingly desirable. And, as in the case of the body, there
are illnesses to which people are especially liable, such as
colds or diarrhoea ; so also are there propensities which the
mind is imder the influence of^ such as enviousness, pitifulness,
quarrelsomeness, and so on.
There are also threeffoiMljiisi>ositions of the mind ; joy^
caution, andwin. And joy they say is the opposite of pleasure,
since it is a rational elation of the mind ; so caution is the
opposite of fear, being a rational avoidance of anything, for
the wise man will never be afraid, but he will act with caution;
and will, they define as the opposite of desire, since it is a
rational wish. As therefore some things fall under the class
of the first perturbations, in the same manner do some things
fall under the class of the first good dispositions. And
accordingly, under the head of will, are classed goodwill,
placidity, salutation, affection ; and under the head of caution
are ranged reverence and modesty ; under the head of joy,
we speak of delight, mirth, and good spirits.
LXIV. They say also, that the wise man is free from per-
turbations, because he has no strong propensities. But that
this freedom from propensities also exists in the bad man,
being, however, then quite another thing, inasmuch as it pro-
^ceeds in him only from the hardness and unimpressibility of
his nature. They also pronounce the wise man free from
vanity, since he regards with equal eye what is glorious and
what is inglorious. At the same time, they admit that there
30*2 LIVES OF EHIITENT PHILOSOPHERS.
is another character devoid of vanity, who, however, is only
reckoned one of the rash men, heing in fact the had man.
They also say that all the virtuous men are austere, hecause
they do never ^ speak with reference to pleasure, nor do they
listen to what is said hy others with reference to pleasure.
At the same time, they call another man austere too, using the
term in nearly the same sense as they do when they speak of
austere wine, which is used in compounding medicines, hut
not for drinking.
They also pronounce the wise to he hone8^hearted men,
anxiously attending to those matters which may make them
hotter, by means of some principle which conceals what is
bad, and brings to light what is good. Nor is there any
hypocrisy about them ; for they cut o£f all pretence in their
voice and appearance. They also keep aloof from business ; for
they guard carefully against doing any thing contrary to
their duty. * They drink wine, but they do not get drunk ;
and they never yield to frenzy. Occasionally, extraordinary
imaginations may obtain a momentary power over them,
owing to some melancholy or trifling, arising not according to
the principle of what is desirable, but contrary to nature.
Nor, again, will the wise man feel grief; because grief is an
irrational contraction of the soul, as ApoUodorus defines it
in his Ethics.
They are also, as they say, godlike ; for they have something
in them which is as it were a God. But the bad man is an
atheist. Now there are two kinds of atheists ; one who
speaks in a spirit of hostility to, and the other, who utterly
disregards, the divine nature ; but they admit that all bad
men are not atheists in this last sense. The good, on the
contrary, are pious ; for they have a thorough acquaintance
with the laws respecting the Gods. And piety is a knowledge
of the proper reverence and worship due to the Gods.
Moreover they sacrifice to the Gods, and keep themselves
pure; for they avoid all offences having reference to the
Gods, and the Gods admire them ; for they are holy and just
in all that concerns the Deity; and the wise men are the
only priests ; for they consider the matters relating to sacri-*
fices, and the erection of temples, and purifications, and all
other things which peculiarly concern the Gods. They
also pronounce that men are bound to honour their parents,
and their brethren, in the second place after the Gods.
ZENO. 303
They also say that parental affection for one's children is
natural to them, and is a feeling which does not exist in had
men. And they lay down the position that all offences are
equal, as Chrysippus argues in the fourth book of his Ethic
Questions, and so say PerssBus and Zeno. For if one thing
that is true is not more true than another thing that is true,
neither is one thing that is false more false than another
thing that is false; so too, one deceit is not greater than another,
nor one sin than another. For the man who is a hundred
furlongs from Canopus, and the man who is only one, are both
equally not in Canopus ; and so too, he who commits a greater
sin, and he who commits a less, are both equally not in
the right path.
Heraclides of Tarsus, indeed, the friend of Antipater, of
Tarsus, and Atbenodori^s, both assert that offences are not
equal.
Again, the Stoics, as for instance, Chiysippus, in the first
book of his work on Lives, say, that the wise man will take a
part in the affairs of the state, if nothing hinders him. For
that he will restrain vice, and excite men to virtue. Also,
they say that he will marry, as Zeno says, in his Republic,
and beget children. MprfiQYftri t-hft^^- t.hft wirq man will never
form mere opinions, that is to say, he will never agree to^
anytEmg that is false ; and that he will become a Cynic ; for
that Cynicism is a short path to virtue, as Apollodorus calls
it in his Ethics ; that he will even eat human flesh, if there
should be occasion ; that he is the only free man, and that
the bad are slaves ; for that freedom is a power of indepen-
dent action, but slavery a deprivation of the same. That
there is besides, another slavery, which consists in subjection,
and a third which consists in possession and subjection ; the
contrary of which is masterhood, which is likewise bad.
And they say, that not only are the wise free, but that they
are also kings, since kingly power is an irresponsible dominion,
which can only exist in the case of the wise man, as Chry-
sippus says in his treatise on the Proper AppHcation of his
Terms made by Zeno ; for he says that a ruler ought to give
'decisions on good and evil, and that none of the wicked
understand these things. In the same way, they assert that
they are the only people who are fit to be magistrates or
judges, or orators, and that none of the bad are qualified for.
these tasks. Moreover, that they are free from all error, in
804 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
consequence of their not being prone to any wrong actions.
Also, that they are unconnected with injury, for that they
never injure any one else, nor themselves. Also, that they
are not pitiful, and that they never make allowance for any
one ; for that tiiey do not rehx the punishments appointed by
law, since yielding, and pity, and mercifulness itself, never
exist in any of their souls, so as to induce an affectation of
kindness in respect of punishment ; nor do they ever think
any punishment too severe. Again, they say that the wise
man never wonders at any of the things which appear extra-
ordinary ; as for instance, at the stories about Charon, or the
ebbing of the tide, or the springs of hot water, or the burst-
ing forth of flames. But, say they further, the wise man
will not live in solitude ; for he is by nature sociable and
practical. Accordingly, he will take gexercise f6r the sake of
hardening and invigorating his body. And the wise man will
pray, asking good things from the Gods, as^ Posidonius says in
the first book of his treatise on Duties, and Hecaton says the
same thing in the thirteenth book of his treatise on Extra-
ordinary Things.
They also say, that friendship exists in the virtuous alone,
on account of their resemblance to one another. And they
describe friendship itself as a certain communion of the things
which concern life, since we use our friends as ourselves. And
they assert that a friend is desirable for his own sake, and that
a number of friends is a good ; and that among the wicked
there is no such thing as Mendship, and that no wicked man
can have a friend.
Again, they say that all the foolish are mad ; for that they
are not prudent, and that madness is equivalent to folly in
every one of its actions ; but that the wise man does every-
thing properly, just as we say that Ismenias can play every
piece of flute-music welL Also, they say that everything
belongs to the wise man, for that the law has given them
perfect and universal power ; but some things also are said to
belong to the wicked, just in the same manner as some things
are said to belong to the unjust, or as a house is said to belong
to a city in a different sense from that in which a thing belongs
to the person who uses it.
LXV. And they say that virtues reciprocally follow one
another, and that he who has one has all ; for that the precepts
ZENd. 905
of them all are common, aa Chrysippus affirms in the first
book of his treatise on Laws ; and ApoUodorus, in his Natural
Philosophy, according to the ancient system ; and Hecaton, in
the third book of his treatise on Virtues. For they say that
the man who is endued with virtue, is able to consider and
also to do what must be done. But what must be done must
be chosen, and encountered, and distributed, and awaited ; so
that if the man does some things by deliberate choice, and
some in a spirit of endurance, and some distributively, and
some patiently ; he is prudent, and courageous, and just, and
temperate. And each of tbe virtues has a particular subject
of its own, about which it is conversant; as, for instance,
courage is conversant about the things which must be endured ;
prudence is conversant about what must be done and what
must not, and what is of a neutral or indifferent character.
And in lilce manner, the other virtues are conversant about
their own peculiar subjects; and wisdom in counsel and
shrewdness follow prudence ; and good order and decorum
follow temperance ; and equality and goodness of judgment
follow justice ; and constancy and energy follow courage.
Another doctrine of the Stoics is, that there is nothing
intermediate between virtue and vice ; while the Peripatetics
assert that there is a stage between virtue and vice, being an
improvement on vice which has not yet arrived at virtue. For
the Stoics say, that as a stick must be either straight or
crooked, so a man must be either just or unjust, and cannot
be more just than just, or more unjust than unjust ; and that
the same rule applies, to all cases. Moreover^ Chrysippus is
of opinion that wtue can be lost, but Cleanthes affirms that
it cannot ; the one saying that it can be lost by drunkenness
or melaneholy, the other maintaining that it cannot be lost on
account of the firm perceptions which it implants in men.
They also pronounce it a proper object of choice ; accordingly,
we are ashamed of actions which we do improperly, while we
are aware that what is honourable is the only good. Again,
they affirm that it is of itself sufficient for happiness, as Zeno
says, and he is followed in this assertion by Chrysippus in the
first book of his treatise on Virtues, and by Hecaton in the
second book of his treatise on Goods.
** For if," says he, " magnanimity be sufficient oi itself to
enable us to act in a manner superior to all other men ; and
X
306 LIVES OF EMINSNT PHILOSOPHERS.
if that is a part of virtue, then virtue is of itself sufficient for
happiness, despising all things which seem troublesome to it.**
However, Panastius and Fosidonius do not admit that virtue
has this sufficiency of itself, but saj that there is also need of
good health, and competency, and strength. And their opinion
is that a man exercises virtue in everything, as Cleanthes
asserts, for it cannot be lost; and the virtuous man on every
occasion exercises his soul, which is in a state of perfection.
LXVI. Again, they say that justice exists by nature, and
not because of any definition or principle ; just as law does,
or right reason, as Ohiysippus tells us in his treatise on the
Beautiful ; and they think that one ought not to abandon
philosophy on account of the different opinions prevailing
among philosophers, since on this principle one wocdd wholly
quit life, as Fosidonius argues in his Exhortatoiy Essays.
Another doctrine of Chrysyppus is, that general learning is
very useful.
And the School in general maintain that there are no
obligations of justice binding on us vnth reference to other
animals, on account of their dissimilarity to us, as Chrysippus
asserts in the first book of his treatise on Justice, and the
same opinion is maintained by Fosidonius in the first book of
his treatise on Duty. They say too, that the wise man will
love those young men, who by their outward appearance, show
a natural aptitude for virtue ; and this opinion is advanced by
Zeno, in his Republic, and by Chrysippus in the first book of
his work on Lives, and by ApoUodorus in his Ethics. And
they describe love as an endeavour to benefit a friend on
account of his visible beauty ; and that it is hn attribute not
of acquaintanceship, but of friendship. Accordingly, that
Thrasmides, although he had his mistress in his power,
abstained from her, because he was hated by her. Love,
therefore, according to them is a part of friendship, as Chry-
sippus asserts in his essay on Love ; and it is not blameable.
Moreover, beauty is the flower of virtue.
And as there are tliree kinds of lives ; the theoretical, the
practical, and the logical ; they say that the last is the one
which ought to be chosen. For that a logical, that is a rational,
animal was made by nature on purpose for speculation and
action. And they say that a wise man will very rationally
take himself out of life, either for the sake of his country or of
ZENO. 807
his Mends, or if he be in bitter pain, of under the afSiction
of mutilation, or incurable disease. And they also teach that
women ought to be in common among the wise, so that who-
ever meets with any one may ei\joy her, and this doctrine is
maintained by Zeno in his Eepublic, and by Chrysippus in
his treatise on Polity, and by Diogenes the Cynic, and by
Plato ; and th^n, say they^ we shall love all boys equally after
the manner of fathers, and all suspicion on the ground of
undue familiarity will be removed.
They afiOLrm too, that the best of political constitutions is a
mixed one, combined of democracy, and kingly power, and
aristocracy. And they say many things of this sort, and more
too, in their Ethical Dogmas, and they maintain them by
suitable explanations and arguments. But this may be enough
for us to say of their doctrines on this head by way of summaiy,'
and taking them in an elementaiy manner.
LXVXI. They divide natural philosophy into the topics of
bodies, and of principles, and of elements, and of Gods, and of
boundaries, and of place, and of the vacuum. And they make
these divisions according to species ; but according to genera
they divide them into iJaree topics, that of the world, that of
the elements, and the third is that which reasons on causes.
The topic about the world, they say, is subdivided into two
parts. For that in one point of view, the mathematicians
also have a share in it ; and according to it it is that they
prosecute their investigations into the nature of the fibbed
stars and the planets ; as, iox instance, whether the sun is of
such a size as he appears to be, and similarly, whether the
moon is ; and in the same way they investigate the question of
spherical motion, and others of the same character. The
other point of view is that which is reserved exclusively for
naturcd philosophers, according to which it is that the existence
and substance of things are examined, [for instance, whether
the sun and the stars consist of matter and form,] and whether
the sun is bom or not bom, whether it is living or lifeless,
corraptible or incormptible, whether it is regulated by Provi-
dence, and other questions of this kind.
The topic which examines into causes they say is also
divisible into two parts ; and with reference to one of its
considerations, the investigations of physicians partake of it ;
according to which it is that they investigate the dominant
X 2
A
308 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHSBS.
principle of the soul, and the things which exist in the
soul, and seeds, and things of this kind. And its other
division is claimed as helonging to them also hy the mathema-
ticians, as, for instance, how we see, what is the cause of our
appearance being reflected in a mirror, how clouds are collected,
how thunder is produced, and the rainbow, and the halo, and
comets, and things of that kind.
LXVIII. They think that there are two general principles
in the universe, the active and the passive. That the passive
is matter, an existence without any distinctive quality. That
the active is the reason which exists in the passive, that is to
say, God. For that he, being eternal, and existing through-
out all matter, makes everything. And Zeno, the Oittisean,
lays down this doctrine in his treatise on Essence, and so does
Oleanthes in his essay on Atoms, Chiysippus in the first book
of his Investigations in Natural Philosophy, towards the end,
Archedemus in his work on Elements, and Posidonius in the
second book of his treatise on Natural Philosophy. But they
say that principles and elements differ from one another. For
that the one had no generation or beginning, and will have no
end ; but that the elements may be destroyed by the operation
of Are. Also, that the elements are bodies, but principles
have no bodies and no forms, and elements too have forms.
Now a body, says Apollodorus in his Natural Philosophy, is
extended in a threefold manner; in length, in breadth, in
depth ; and then it is called a solid body ; and the superficies
is the limit of the body having length and breadth alone, but
not depth. But Posidonius, in the third book of his Heavenly
PhsBnomeua, will not allow a superficies either any substantiid
reality, or any intelligible existence. A line is the limit of a
superficies, or length without breadth, or something which has
nothing but length. A point is the boundary of a line, and is
the smallest of all symbols.
They also teach tliat God is unity, and that he is called
Mind, and Fate, iind Jupiter, and by many other names be-
sides. And that, as he was in the beginning by himself, he
turned into water the whole substance which pervaded the air ;
and as the seed is contained in the produce, so too, he being
the seminal principle of the world, remained behind in
moisture, making matter fit to be employed by himself in the
production of those things which ^ere to come after; and
ZBiro. Q09
then, first of all, he made tlie four elements, fire, water, air,
and earth. And Zeno speaks of these in his treatise on the
Universe, and so does Chrysippus in the first book of his
Physics, and so does Archedemus in some treatise on the
Elements.
LXIX. Now an element is that out of which at first all
things which are are produced, and into which all things are
resolved at last. And the four elements are all equally an
essence without any distinctive quality, namely, matter ; but
fire is the hot, water the moist, air the cold, and earth the dry
— ^though this last quality is also common to the air. The fire
is the highest J and that is called sethej, in which first of all
the sphere was generated in which the fiixed stars are set,
then that in which the planets revolve ; after that the air,
then the water; and the sediment as it were of all is the
earth, which is placed in the centre of the rest.
LXX. They also speak of the world in a threefold sense ;
at one time meaning God himself, whom they call a being of
a certain quality, having for his peculiar manifestation universal
substance, a being imperishable, and who never had any
generation, being tiie maker of the arrangement and order
that we see ; and who, after certain periods of time, absorbs
all substance in himself, and then re-produces it firom himself.
And this arrangement of the stars they call the world, and so
the third sense is one composed of both the preceding ones.
And the world is a thing which is peculiarly of such and such
a quality consisting of universal substance, as Posidonius
affirms in his Meteorological Elements, being a system com-
pounded of heaven and earth, and all the creatures which
exist in them ; or it may be called a system compounded of
Gods and men, and of the things created on their account.
And the heaven is the most remote circumference of the
world, in which all the Divine Nature is situated.
Again, the world is inhabited and regulated according to
intellect and providence, as Chrysippus says, in his works on
Providence, and Posidonius in the thirteenth book of his
treatise on Gods, since mind penetrates into every part of the
world, just as the soul pervades us ; but it is in a greater
degree in some parts, and in a less degree in others. For
instance, it penetrates as a habit, as, for instance, into the
bones and sinews ; and into some it penetrates as the mind
310 LIVES OF EMINSKT FHIL0S0PHEB8.
does, for instance, into the dominant principle. .And thus the
wlKd0..wQild, hfiiag. a living thing, endowed with a 80\il_i^d
with reason, has the ether as its dominant principle, as
Ahtipater, of Tyre, says in the eighth hook of his treatise on
the World. But Chiysippus, in the first book of his essay on
Providence, and Posidonius in his treatise on Gods, say that
the heaven is the dominant principle of the world; and
Cleanthes attributes this to the sun. Chiysippus, however,
on this point contradicts himself ; for "he says in another place,
that the most subtle portion of the ether, which is also called
by the Stoics the first God, is what is infused in a sensible
manner into all the beings which are in the air, and through
every animal and every plant, and through the earth itself
according to a certain habit ; and that it is this which com*
municates to them the fiBUsulty of feeling.
They say too, that the world is one and also finite, having
a spherical form. For that such a shape is the most convenient
for motion, as Posidonius says, in the fifteenth book of his
Discussions on Natural Philosophy, and so says Antipater also
in his essay on the World. And on the outside there is
diffused around it a boundless vacuum, which is incorporeal.
And it is incorporeal inasmuch, as it is capable of being con-
tained by bodies, but is not so. And that there is no such
thing as a vacuum in the world, but that it is all closely united
and compact ; for that this condition is necessarily brought
about by the concord and harmony which exist between the
heavenly bodies and those of the earth. And Chrysippus
mentions a vacuum in his essay on a Vacutmi, and also in the
first book of his treatise on the Physical Arts, and so does
Apollophanes in lus Natural Philosophy, and so does ApoUo-
dorus, and so does Posidonius in the second book of his
discourses on Natural Philosophy. And they say that these
things are all incorporeal, and all alike. Moreover, that time
is incorporeal, since it is an interval of the motion of the
world. And that of time, the past and the future are both
illinutable, but the present is limited. And they assert that
the world is perishable, inasmuch as it was produced by reason,
and is one of the things which are perceptible by the senses ;
and whatever has its parts perishable, must also be perishable
in the whole. And the parts of the world are perishable, for
they change into one another. Therefore, the whole world is
ZBNO. 811
perishable. And again, if anything admits of a change for the
worse.it is perishable ; therefore, the world is perishable, for it
can be dried up, and it can be covered with water.
Now the world was created when its substance was changed
from fire to moisture, by the action of the air ; and then its
denser parts coagulated, and so the earth was made, and the
thinner portions were evaporated and became air; and this
being rarefied more and more, produced fire. And then, by
the combination of all these elements, were produced plants
and, animals, and other kinds of things. Now Zeno speaks
of the creation, and of the destruction of the world, in hia
treatise on the Universe, and so does Cleanthes, and so does
Antipater, in the tenth book of his treatise on the World.
But Panaetius asserts that the world is imperishable.
Again, that the world is an animal, and that it is endued
with reason, and life, and intellect, is affirmed by Chrysippus,
in the first volume of his treatise on Providence, and by
ApoUodorus in his Natural Philosophy, and by Posidonius ;
and that it is an animal in this sense, as being an essence
endued with life, and with sensation. For that which is an
animal, is better than that which is not an animal. But
nothing is better than the world ; therefore the world is an
animal. And it is endued with life, as is plain from the fact
of our own soul being as it were a fragment broken off from
it. But Boethus denies that the world is an animal.
Again, that the world is one, is affirmed by Zeno, in his
treatise on the Universe, and by Chrysippus, and by ApoUo-
dorus, in his Natural Philosophy, and by Posidonius, in the
first book of his Discourses on Natural Philosophy. And by
the term, the universe, according to ApoUodorus, is understood
both the world itself, and also the whole of the world itself,
and of the exterior vacuum taken together. The world, then,
is finite, and the vacuum infinite.
LXXI. Of the stars, those which are fixed are only moved
in connection with the movements of the entire heaven ; but
the planets move according to their own peculiar and separate
motions. And the sun takes an oblique path through the
circle of the zodiac, and in the same manner also does the
moon, which is of a winding form. And the sun is pure fire,
as Posidonius asserts in the seventh book of his treatise on
the Heavenly Bodies, and it is larger than the earth, as the
3 Id LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
same author informs us, in the sixteenth book of his Dis-
closures on Natural ^Philosophy. Also it is spherical^as he
says in another place, being made on the same principle as
the world is. Therefore it ia fire, because it performs all the
functions of fire. And it is larger than the earth, as is
proved by the fact of the whole earth being illuminated by it,
and also the whole heaven. Also the fact of the earth throw-
ing a conical shadow, proves that the sun is greater than it ;
and the sun is seen in every part, because of its magnitude.
But the moon is of a more earthy nature than the sun,
inasmuch as it is nearer the earth.
Moreover, they say that all these fiery bodies, and all the
other stars, receive nutriment ; the sun . from the vast sea,
being a sort of intellectual appendage ; and the moon from
the fresh waters, being mingled with the air, and also near
the earth, as Posidonius explains it in the sixth book of his
Discourses on Natural Philosophy. And all the other stars
derive their nourishment from the earth. They also consider
that the stars are of a spherical figure, and that the earth
is immovable. And that the moon has not a light of her
own, but that she borrows it from the sun. And that the sun
is eclipsed, when the moon runs in front of it on the side
towards us, as Zeno describes in his work on the Universe ;
for when it comes across it in its passage, it conceals it, and
again it reveals it ; and this is a phenomenon easily seen in a
basin of water. And the moon is eclipsed when it comes
below the shadow of the earth, on which account this never
happens, except at the time of the full moon ; and although
it is diametrically opposite to the sun every month, still it is
not eclipsed every month, because when its motions are
obliquely towards the sun, it does not find itself in the same
place as the sun, being either a little more to the north, or a
little more to the south. When therefore it is found in the
same place with the sun, and with the other intermediate
objects, then it takes as it were the diameter of the sun, and
is eclipsed. And its place is along the line which runs
between the crab and the scorpion, and the ram and the bull,
as Posidonius tells us.
/ LXXII. They also say that God , is an animal immortal,
^ rational, perfect, and intellectual in his happiness, unsuscept-
ible of any kind of evil, having a foreknowledge of the world
and of all that is in the world : however, that he has not the
figure of a man ; and that he is the creator of the universe, fl ' i
and as it were, theFather of ^1 things in common^ and that |^ (,J
a portion of hiia... pervades everything, which is called by
dinerent names, according to its powers ; for they call him A/a — ''^
as being the person (di' ov) everything is, and Z?va, inasmuch
as he is the cause of life, (row Zfiv)j or because he pervades
life. And 'A^w, with reference to the extension of his
dominant power over the aether (g/V ai0i^a). And *H^, on
account of his extension through the air (sig dg^a). And
"Hfxtttfrog, on account of his pervading fire, which is the
chief instrument of art ; and notrs/dwv, as pervading moisture,
and AtifiTirri^, as pervading the earth (r?). And in the same
way, regarding some other of his peculiar attributes, they
have given him other names.*
The substance of God is asserted by Zeno to be the universal
world, and the heaven; and Chrysippus agrees with this
doctrine, in his eleventh book on the Gods ; and so also does
Posidonius, in the first book of his treatise on the same sub-
ject. Antipater, in the seventh book of his treatise on the
World, says that his substance is aerial. And Boethus, in his
treatise on Nature, calls the substance of God the sphere of
the fixed stars.
LXXIII. And his nature they define to be, that which
keeps the world together, and sometimes that which produces
the things upon the earth. And nature is a habit which
derives its movements from itself, perfecting and holding
together all that arises out of it, according to the principles of
production, in certain definite periods, and doing the same as
the things from which it is separated. And it has for its
object, suitableness and pleasure, as is plain from its having
created man.
LXXIV. But • Chrysippus, in his treatise on Fate, and
Posidonius, in the second book of his work on Fate, and
Zeno, and Boethus, in the eleventh book of his treatise on
Fate, say, that all things are produced by fate. And fate,
* It is hardly necessary to remark that 'AOriva is the name of
Minerva, not of Jupiter ; "Hpa, of Juno ; 'U^aitrrog, of Vulcan ;
Iloauduiv, of Neptune, and AtifiriTtipf of Ceres. "H^aierrop is properly
derived from (ftaivoj, to shine ; JloffeiSdv has some affinity with voutf to
drink. AtifjifiTrip is only a dialectic variation of T^ fJ^v^rip
314 LIVES OF £MIN£17T PHILOSOPHEBS.
(itfAa^ivn\ is a connected (tIfofAUij) cause of existing things,
or the reason according to which the world is regulated.
LXXY. They also say that divination has a universal
existence, since Providence has ; and they define it as an act
on account of certain results, as Zeno and Chrysippus, in the
second book of his treatise on Diyination, and Athenodorus
and Posidonius, in the twelfth book of his discourses on
Natural Philosophy, and in the fifth book of his treatise on
Divination, all agree in saying ; for PansBtius denies that it
has any certain foundation.
LXXVI. And they say that the substance of all existing
things is Primary Matter, as Chrysippus asserts in the first
book of his Physics ; and Zeno says the same. Now matter
is that from which anything whatever is produced. And it is
called by a twofold appellation, essence and matter ; the one
as relating to all things taken together, and the other to
things in particular and separate. The one which relates to
all things taken together, never becomes either greater or
less ; but the one relating to things in particular, does become
greater or less, as the case may be.
LXXVII. Body is, according to them, a substance and
finite ; as Antipater says, in the second book of lus treatise on
Substance ; and Apollodorus, in his Natural Philosophy, agrees
^vith him. It is also subject to change, as we learn firom the
same author ; for if it were immutable, then the things which
have been produced out of it would not have been produced ;
on which account he also says that it is infinitely divisible :
but Chrysippus denies that it is infinite ; for that nothing is
infinite, which is divisible at aU.
LXXVIII. He admits, however, that it is infinitely
divisible, and that its concretions take place over the whole
of it, as he explains in the third book of his Physics, and not
according to any circumference or juxtaposition ; for a little
wine when thrown into the sea, vdll keep its distinctness for a
brief period, but after that, will be lost.
LXXIX. They also say that there are some Dasmones,
who have a sympathy with mankind, being surveyors of all
human affairs ; and that there are heroes, which are the souls
of virtuous men, which have left their bodies.
LXXX. Of the things which take place In the air, they
say that winter is the effect of the air above the earth being
ZENO. . 815
cooled, on account of the retirement of the sun to a greater
distance than before ; that spring is a good temperature of
the air, according to the sun*s approach towards us; that
summer is the effect of the air above the earth being warmed
by the approach of the sun towards the north ; that autumn
is^caused by the retreat of the sun from us. . . .
to those places from which thej flow.*
LXXXI. And the cause of the production of the winds is
the sun, which evaporates the clouds. Moreover, the rain-
bow is the reflexion of the sun's rays from the moist clouds,
or, as Posidouius explains it in his Meteorology, a manifesta^
tion of a section of the sun or moon, in a clotid suffused with
4ew ; being hollow and continuous to the sight ; so that it is
reflected as in a mirror, under the appearance of a circle.
And that comets, and bearded stars, and meteors, are fires
which have an existence when the density of the air is borne
upwards to the regions of the aether.
That a ray of light is a kindling of sudden Are, borne
through the air with great rapidity,, and displaying an appear*
ance of length ; that rain proceeds from the clouds, being a
transformation of them into water, whenever the moisture
which is caught up from the earth or from the sea, by the sun,
is not able to be otherwise disposed of; for when it is soli*
difled, it is then called hoar frost. And hail is a cloud con-
gealed, and subsequently dispersed by the wind. Snow is
moisture from a congealed cloud, as Posidonius tells us in
the eighth book of his discourse on Natural Philosophy.
Lightning is a kindling of the clouds from their being rubbed
together, or else broken asunder by the wind, as Zeno tells
us in his treatise on the Universe ; and thunder is the noise
made by them on the occasion of their being rubbed together
or broken asunder ; and the thunderbolt is a sudden kindling
which Mis with great violence on the earth, from the clouds
being rubbed together or broken asunder, or, as others say, it is
a conversion of fiery air violently brought down to the earth.
A typhon is a vast thunderbolt, violent and full of wind, or a
smoky breath of a cloud broken asunder. A «r^fjtfn)( is a cloud
* There is a'hiatus in the text here. Casaubon supplies the meaning
by a reference to Plutarch's Treatise on the opinions of the Philoso-
pners, iii. 7, " that the winds are a flowing of the air, and that they
have various names with reference to the countries from which they
flow."
316 UVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
rent by fire, with wind,* - . . .
into the hollows of the earth, or when the wind is pent up in
the earth, as Posidonius says in his eighth book ; and that
sone of tbem are shakings, others rendings, others emissions
of fire, and others, instances of violent fermentation.
LXXXII. They also think that the general arrangement
of the world is in this fashion ; that the earth is in the mid-
dle, occupying the place of the centre ; next to which comes
the water, of a spherical form ; and having the same centre as
the earth ; so that the earth is in the water ; and next to the
water comes the air, which has also a spherical form.
LXXXIII. And that there are five circles in the heaven ;
of which the first is the arctic circle, which is always visible ;
the second is the tropical summer circle ; the third is the
equinoctial circle ; the fourth, the winter tropical circle ; and
the fifth the antarctic, which is not visible. And they are
called parallel, because they do not incline to one ahother ;
they are drawn however around the same centre. But the
zodiac is oblique, cutting the parallel circles. There are also
five zones on the earth ; the first is the northern one, placed
under the arctic circle, uninhabitable by reason of the cold ;
The second is temperate ; the third is uninhabitable because
of the heat, and is called the torrid zone; the fourth is a
temperate zone, on the other side of the torrid zone ; the fifth
is the southern zone, being also uninhabitable by reason of the
cold, t
LXXXIV. Another of their doctrines is that nature is an
artificial fire tending by a regular rocd to production, which is
a fiery kind of breath proceeding according to art. Also, that
the soul is sensible, and that it is a spirit which is bom with
Us; consequently it is a body and continues to exist after
death ; that nevertheless it is perishable. But that the soul
of the universe is imperishable, and that the souls which exist
in animals are only parts of that of the universe. But Zeno,
the Cittisean, and Antipater, in their treatise concerning the
* * Something is evidently wanting here ; probably some mention of
an earthquake.
f This IB similar to Virgil's description.
Quinque tenent ccelum zonae, quarum una corusco
Semper Sole rubens, et torrida semper ab igni :
Quam circum eztremse dextr4 laev&que trahuntur,
ZBNO. 3 IT
Soul, and Posidonius also, all say that the soul is a warm
spirit ; for that by it we have our breath, and by it we are
moved. Cleanthes, accordingly, asserts that all soids continue
to exist till they are burnt up ; but Chrysippus says that it is
only the souls of the wise that endure. And they further
teach that there are eight parts of the soul ; the five senses,
and the generative faculties, and voice, and reason. And we
see because of a body of luminous air which extends from the
organ of sight to the object in a conical form, as it is asserted
by Chrysippus, in the second book of his Natural Philosophy,
and also by ApoUodorus. And the apex of this cone is close
to the eye, and its base is formed by the object which is seen ;
so that that which is seen is as it were reported to the eye by
this continuous cone of air extended towards it like a staff. In
the same way, we hear because the air between the speaker and
the hearer is struck in a spherical manner ; and is then
agitated in waves, resembling the circular eddies which one
sees in a cistern when a stone is dropped into it.
Sleep, they say, is produced by a relaxation of the SBSthetic
energies with reference to the dominant part of the soul. And
the causes of the passions they explain to be the ^motions and
conversions which take place in connection with this spirit or
soul.
LXXXY. Seed, they define as a thing of a nature capable
of producing other things of the same nature as the thing
from which it has been separated. And the seed of man,
which man emits, is, together with moisture, mixed up with
the parts of the soul by that kind of mixture which corre-
Coeruled glacie concreted atque imbribuB atris.
Has inter mediamque duse mortalibuB segris
Munere concessae Diviim, et via secta per ambas,
Obliquus qua se signorum verteret ordo. — Qbobo. L 233.
There is na part of Dryden's translation superior to that of this
passage.
five girdles bind the skies ; the torrid zone
Glows with the passing and repassing sun ;
Far on the right and left, th' extremes of heaven,
To frosts, and snows, and bitter blasts are given ;
Betwixt the midst And there the Gods assigned
Four habitable seats for human kind,
And cross their limits cut a sloping way,
Which the twelve signs in beauteous order sway. L 322.
Sid LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHEBS.
sponds to the capacity of the parents. And Ohrysippus says,
in the second book of his Natural Philosophy, that it is a
spirit according to substance ; as is manifest from the seeds
which are planted in the earth ; and which, if they are old,
do not germinate, because all their virtue has eyaporated.
And Sphserus says, that seed proceeds from the entire body,
and that that is how it is that it produces all the parts of
the body.
They also say that the seed of the female is unproductiye ;
for, as Sphaerus says, it is devoid of tone» and small in
quantity, and watery.
LXXXVI. They also say that that is the dominant part
of the soul which is its most excellent part ; in which the
imaginations and the desires are formed, and whence reason
proceeds. And this place is in the heart.
These then are the doctrines on the subject of natural
philosophy entertained by them, which it seems sufficient for
us to detail, having regard to the due proportions of this
book. And the following are the points in which some of
them disagreed with the rest.
LIF^ OF ARISTON.
I. Ariston the Bald, a native of Chios, sumamed the
Scion, said, that the chief good was to live in perfect indiffer-
ence to all those things which are of an intermediate character
between virtue and vice ; making not the slightest difference
between them, but regarding them all on a footing of equality.
For that the wise man resembles a good actor ; who, whether
he is filling the part of Agamemnon or Thersites, will perform
them both equally well.
II. And he discarded altogether the topic of physics, and
of logic, saying that the one was above us, and that the other
had nothing to do with us ; and that the only branch of
philosophy with which we had any real concern was ethics.
III. He also said that dialectic reasonings were like
ARISTON. 3 Id
cobwebs ; which,' although they seem to be put together on
principles of art, are utterly useless.
lY. And he did not introduce many virtues into his scheme,
as Zeno did ; nor one virtue under a great many names, as
the Megaric philosophers did ; but defined virtue as consisting
in behaving in a certain manner with reference to a certain
thing.
y. And as he philosophized in this manner, and carried on
his discussions in the Cynosarges, he got so much influence
as to be called a founder of a sect. Accordingly, Miltiades,
and Diphilus were called Aristoneans.
VI. He was a man of very persuasive eloquence, and one
who could adapt himself well to the humours of a multitude.
On which account Timon says of him : —
And one who, from Ariston's wUy race,
Traced his descent.
Diodes, the Magnesian, tells us that Ariston having fallen
in with Polemo, passed over to his school, at a time when
Zeno was lying ill with a long sickness. The Stoic doctrine to
which he was most attached, was the one that the wise man
is never guided by opinions. But Persseus argued against
this, and caused one of two twin brothers to place a deposit in
his hands, and then caused the other to reclaim it ; and thus
he convicted him, as he was in doubt on this point, and there
fore forced to act on opinion. He was a great enemy of
Arcesilaus. And once, seeing -a bull of a monstrous confor-
mation, having a womb, he said, *' Alas ! here is an argument
for Arcesilaus against the evidence of his senses." On another
. occasion, when a philosopher of the Academy said that he did
not comprehend anything, he said to him, ** Do not you even
see the man who is sitting next to you ?" And as he said
that he did not, be said : —
Who then has blmded you, who's been so harsh.
As thus to rob you of your beaming eyes ?
VII. The following works are attributed to him. Two books
of Exhortatory Discourses; Dialogues on the Doctrines of
Zeno ; six books of Conversations ; seven books of Discussions
on Wisdom ; Conversations on Love ; Commentaries on Vain
Glory; twenty-five books of Reminiscences; three books of
320 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHEBS.
Memorabilia ; eleven books of ApophUiegms ; a volame against
the Orators ; a volume against the Rescripts of Alexinus ;
three treatises against the Dialecticians ; four books of Letters
to Cleanthes. But Pansetius and Sosicrates say, that his only
genuine writings are his letters ; and that all the rest are the
works of Ariston the Peripatetic.
VIII. It is said that he, being bald, got a stroke of the
sun, and so died. And we have written a jesting epigram on
him in Scajon iambics, in the following terms : —
Why, O Ariston, being old and bald.
Did you allow the sun to roast your crown f
ThuB, in an 4inbecoming search for warmth,
Against your will, you've found out chilly HelL
IX. There was also another man of the name of Ariston ;
a native of Julii, one of the Peripatetic school. And another
who was an Athenian musician. A fourth who was a tn^c
poet. A fifth, a native of Aloea, who wrote a treatise on ^e
Oratorical Art. A sixth was a peripatetic Philosopher of
Alexandria.
LIFE OF HERILLUS.
I. H^iLLUs, a native of Carthage, said that the chief good
was knowledge ; that is to say, the always conducting one's
self in such a way as to refer everything to the principle of
living according to knowledge, and not been misled by igno-
rance. He also said that knowledge was a hal^t not departing
from reason in the reception of perceptions.
On one occasion, he said that there was no such thing as a
chief good, but that circumstances and events changed it, just
as the same piece of brass might become a statue either of
Alexander or of Socrates. And that besides the chief good or
end (rsXo^*), there was a subordinate end (v^onTJf) different
from it. And that those who were not wise aimed at the
• "'YTTorfXicj a name given by Herillus in Diogenes Laertius to a
man's natural talents, &c., -which ought all to be subordinate to the
attainment of the chief good." — L. E. S. in t/oc.
DIONYSIUS. 821
latter ; but that only the wise man directed his views to the
former. And all the things between virtue and vice he
pronounced indifferent.
II. His books contain but few lines, but they are full of
power, and contain arguments in opposition to Zeno.
III. It is said, that when he was a boy, many people were
attached to him ; and as Zeno wished to drive them away, he
persuaded him to have his head shaved, which disgusted them
all.
IV. His books are these. One on Exercise; one on the
Passions ; one on Opinion ; the Lawgiver ; the Skilful
Midwife ; the Contradictory Teacher ; fiie Preparer ; the
Director ; the Mercury ; the Medea ; a book of Dialogues ; a
book of Ethical Propositions.
LIFE OF DIONYSIUS.
I. DiONYsius, the Deserter, as he was called, asserted that
pleasure was the chief good, from the circumstance of his
being afflicted vnth a complaint in his eyes. For, as he
suffered severely, he could not pronounce pain a thing in-
different.
II. He was the son of Theophantus, and a native of
Heraclea.
III. He was a pupil, as we are told by Diodes, first of all
of Heraclides, his feUow citizen ; after that of Alexinus, and
Menedemus ; and last of all of Zeno. And at first, as he was
very devoted to learning, he tried his hand at all kinds of
poetry. Afterwards, he attached himself to Aratus, whom he
took for his model. Having left Zeno, he turned to the
Cyrenaics, and became a frequenter of brothels, and in other
respects indulged in luxury without disguise.
IV. When he had lived near eighty years, he died of
starvation.
V. The foUovdng books are attributed to him. Two books
on Apathy ; two on Exercise ; four on Pleasure ; one on
y
323 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHEBS.
Kiclies, and FayourSy and Bevenge ; one on the Use of Men ;
one on Good Fortune ; one on Ancient Kings ; one on Things
which are Praised ; one on Barhanan Customs.
These now are the chief men who differed from the Stoics.
But the man who succeeded Zeno in his school was Cleanthes,
whom we must now speak of.
LIFE OF CLEANTHES.
I. Cleanthes was a native of Assos, and the son of
Phanias. He was originallj a boxer, as we learn from Antis-
thenes, in his Successions. And he came to Athens, having
but foiu: drachmas, as some people say, and attaching himself
to Zeno, he devoted himself to Philosophy in a most noble
manner ; and he adhered to the same doctrines as his master.
II. He was especially eminent for his industry, so that as
he was a very poor man, he was forced to undertake mercenary
employments, and he used to draw water in the gardens by
night, and by day he used to exercise himself in philosophical
discussions; on which account he was called Phreantles.*
They also say that he was on one occasion brought before a
court of justice, to be compelled to give an account what his
sources of income were from which he maintained himself in
such good condition : and that then he was acquitted, having
produced as his witness the gardener in whose ^mlen he drew
the water ; and a womsm who was a mealseller, in whose
establishment he used to prepare the meal. And the judges
of the Areopagus admired him, and voted that ten minae should
be given to him ; but Zeno forbade him to accept them.
They also say that Antigonus presented him three thousand
drachmas. And once, when he was conducting some yoimg
men to some spectacle, it happened that the wind blew away
his cloak, and it was then seen that he had nothing on under
it; on which he was greatly applauded by the Athenians,
* From ^piap, a well, and AvrXiut, to draw wator.
CLEANTHES* 3Q3
according to the account given by Demetrius, the Magnesian,
in his essay on People of the same Name. And he was greatly
admired by them on account of this circumstance.
They also say that Antigonus, who was a pupil of his, once
asked him why he drew water ; and that he made answer,
" Do I do nothing beyond drawing water ? Do I not also dig,
and do I not water the land, and do all sorts of things for the
sake of philosophy?" For Zeno used to accustom him to this,
and used to require' him to bring him an obol by way of
tribute.* And once he brought one of the pieces of money
which he had collected in this way, into the middle of a
company of his acquaintances, and said, *' Cleanthes could
maintain even another Cleanthes if he were to choose; but
others who have plenty of means to support themselves, seek
for necessaries from others ; although tiey only study philo-
sophy in a very lazy manner." And, in reference to these
habits of his, Cleanthes was called a second Heracles.
III. He was then very industrious ; but he was not well
endowed by nature, and was very slow in his intellect. On
which account Timon says of him : —
What stately ram thns measures o'er the ground.
And master of the flock surveys them round ?
What citizen of Assos, dull and cold,
Fond of long words, a mouth-piece, but not bold.+
And when he was ridiculed by his fellow pupils, he used to
bear it patiently.
IV. He did not even object to the name when he was
called an ass ; but only said that he was the only animal able
to bear the burdens which Zeno put upon him." And once,
when he was reproached as a coward, he said, ** That is the
reason why I make but few mistakes." He used to say; in
justification of his preference of his own way of life to that " of
the rich, " That while they were playing at ball, he was earning
money by digging hard and barren ground." And he very
often used to blame himself. And once, Ariston heard him
doing so, and said, ** Who is it that you are reproaching ?"
* The Greek used is &iro^op& ; which was a term especially applied
to the money which slaves let out to hire paid to their master.
+ This is a parody on Hom. XL iii 196. Pope's version, i. 260, The
wprd oXfios means the mouth- piece of a flute.
T 2
324 LIVES OF IlBilNENT PHILOSOPHERS.
and he replied, '^An old man who has grey hair, but no
brains."
When some one once said to him, that Arcesilaus did not
do what he ought, *' Desist," he repHed, *' and do not blame
him ; for if he destroys duty as ^far as his words go, at all
events he establishes it by his actions." Arcesilaus once said
to him, " I never listen to flatterers." " Yes," rejoined Clean-
thes, " I flatter you, when I say that though you say one
thing, you do another." When some one once asked him what
lesson he ought to inculcate on his son, he replied, *' The
warning of Electra :*' —
Silence, silence, gently step.*
When a Lacedaemonian once said in his hearing, that labour
was a good thing, he was delighted, and addressed him : —
Oh, early worth, a soul so wise and young
Proclaims you from the sage Lycurgus sprung.
Hecaton tells us in his Apophthegms, that once when a
young man said, " If a man who beats his stomach ^aerr^/^s/,
then a man who slaps his thigh /tjjp/^g/." he replied, " Do you
stick to your dsafifi^tt^u.''* But ansdogous words do not always
indicate analogous facts. Once when he was conversing with
a youth, he asked him if he felt ; and as he said that he did,
" Why is it then," said Cleanthes, " that I do not feel that
you feel 7"
When Sositheus, the poet, said in the theatre where he was
present : —
Ken whom the folly of Cleanthes urges ;
He continued in the same attitude ; at which the hearers were
surprised, and applauded him, but drove Sositheus away. And
when he expressed his sorrow for having abused him in this
manner, he answered him gently, saying, " That it would be
a preposterous thing for Bacchus and Hercules to bear being
ridiculed by the poets without any expression of anger, and
for him to be indignant at any chance attack." He used
also to say, ** That flie Peripatetics were in the same condi-
dion as lyres, which though they utter sweet notes, do not
♦ Taken from the Orestes of Euripides, i 140.
t This is parodied from Horn. Od. iv. 611. Pope's version, 1. 831.
r
CLBANTHBS. 325
l^ear themselves." And it is said, that wrhen he asserted
that, on the principles of . Zeno, one could judge of a man's
character by his looks, some witty young men brought him
a profligate fellow, having a hardy look from continual
axercise in the fields, and requested him to tell them his
moral character ; and he, haviiug hesitated a little, bade the
man depart; and, as he departed, he sneezed, '*! have the
fellow now," said Cleanthes, ** he is a debauchee.'*
, He said once to a man who was conversing with him by
himlself, " You are not talking to a bad man.'* And when
some one reproached him with his old age, he rejoined, " I
too wish to depart, but when I perceive myself to be in
good health in every respect, and to be able to recite and
read, I am content to remain.*' They say too, that he used
to write down all that he heard from Zeno on oyster shells,
and on the shoulder-blades of oxen, from want of money to
buy paper with.
V. And though he was of this character, and in such
circumstances, he became so eminent, that, though Zeno
had many other disciples of high reputation, he succeeded
him as the president of his School.
VI. And he left behind him some excellent books, which
are these. One on Time ; two on Zeno's System of Natural
Philosophy; four books of the Explanations of Heraclitus:
one on Sensation ; one on Art ; one addressed to Democritus ;
one to Aristarchus ; one to Herillus ; two on Desire ; one
entitled Archaeology ; one on the Gods ; one on the Giants ;
one on Marriage ; one on Poets ; three on Duty ; one on
Good Counsel ; one on Favour ; one called Exhortatory ;
one on Virtues; one on Natural Ability; one on Gorgippus ;
one ' on Enviousness ; one on Love ; one on Freedom ;
one called the Art of Love ; one on Honour ; one on
Glory ; The Statesman ; one on Counsel ; one on Laws ;
one on Deciding as a Judge ; one on the Way of Life ;
three on Keason ; one on the Chief Good ; one on the
Beautiful ; one on Actions ; one on Knowledge ; one on
Kingly Power; one on Friendship; one on Banquets; one
on the Principle that Virtue is the same in Man and Woman ;
one on the Wise Man Employing Sophisms ; one on Apoph-
thegms ; two books of Conversations ; one on Pleasure ; one
326 LIVES OF EMINENT PHIL080PHEB8.
on Properties ; one on Doubtful Things ; one on Dialectics ;
one on Modes ; one on Categorems.
YII. These are his writings.
And he died in the following manner. His gums swelled
yery much ; and, at the command of his physicians, he abstained
from food for two days. And he got so well that his physicians
allowed him to return to all his former habits ; but he refused,
and saying that he had now already gone part of the way, he
abstained from food for the future, and so died ; being, as
some report, eighty years old, and having been a pupil of Zeno
nineteen years. And we have written a playful epigram on
him also, which runs thus : —
I pndse CleaniheB, but pnuBe Fluto more ;
Who could not bear to see him grown so old.
So gave him rest at last among the dead,
Who'd drawn such loads of water while alive.
IJFE OF SPHiERUS.
I. Sfh^bus, a native of the Bosphorus, was, as we have
said before, a pupil of Cleanthes after the death of Zeno.
II. And when he made a considerable advance in philosophy
he went to Alexandria, to the court of Ptolemy Philopater.
And once, when there was a discussion concerning the ques-
tion .whether a wise man would allow himself to be guided by
opinion, and when Sphserus affirmed that he would not, the
king, wishing to refute him, ordered some pomegranates of
wax to be set before him ; and when Sphserus was deceived by
them, the king shouted that he had given his assent to a fedse
perception. But Sphserus answered very neatly, that he had
not given his assent to the fact that they were pomegranates,
but to the fact that it was probable that they might be pome-
granates. And that a perception which could be comprehended
differed from one that was only probable.
Once, when Innesistratus accused him of denying that
CHYSIPPU& 327
Ptolemy was a king, he said to him, " That Ptolemy was a
man with such and such qualities, and a king."*
III. He wrote the following books. Two on the World ;
one on the Elements of Seed ; one on Fortune ; one on the
Smallest Things ; one on Atoms and Phantoms ; one on the
Senses ; five Gonversations about Heraclitus ; one on Ethical
Arrangement ; one on Duty ; one on Appetite ; two on the
Passions ; one on Eingly Power ; on the LacedsBmonian
Constitution ; three on Lycurgus and Socrates ; one on Law ;
one on Divination ; one volume of Dialogues on Love ; one
on the Eretrian Philosophers ; one on Things Similar ; one
on Terms ; one on Habits ; three on Contradictions ; one on
Beason ; one on Biches ; one on Glory ; one on Death ; two
on the Art of Dialectics ; one on Categorems : one on Ambi-
guity ; and a volume of Letters.
LIFE OF CHRYSIPPUS.
I. Chbysifpus was the son of ApoUonius, and a native of
either Soli or Tarsus, as Alexander tells us in his Successions ;
and he was a pupil of Cleanthes. Previously he used to
practise running as a public runner ; then he became a pupil
of Zeno or of Cleanthes, as Diodes and the generality of
authors say, and while he was still living he abandoned him,
and became a very eminent philosopher.
II. He was a man of great natural ability, and of great
acuteuess in every way, so that in . many points he dissented
* This is referring to the Stoic doctrine ridiculed by Horace :
Si dives qui sapiens est,
Et Butor bonus, et solus formosus, et est Bex
Cur optas quod habes i — ^Hor. Sat i 130.
Which may be translated : —
If every man is rich who's wise,
A cobbler too beyond all price ;
A handsome man, and eke a king ;
Why thus your vows at randiAn fi^uig I
928 LIVES OF EIPNENT PHJLOSOPHEBS.
from Zeno, and also from Cleanthes, to whom he often used
to say that he only wanted to he instructed in the dogmas of
the school, and that he would discover the demonstrations for
himself. But whenever he opposed him with any vehemence,
be always repented, so that he used frequently to say : —
In most respects I am a happy man,
Excepting where Cleanthes is concerned ;
For in that matter I am far from fortunate. - —
And he had such a high reputation as a dialectician, that most
people thought that if there were such a science as dialectics
among the Gods; it would he in no respect different from that
of Ohrysippus. But though he was so eminently ahle in matter,
he was not perfect in style.
III. He was industrious heyond aU other men ; as is plain
from his writings ; for he wrote more than seven hundred and
five hooks. And he often wrote several hooks on the same
suhject, wishing to put down everything that occurred to him ;
and constantly correcting his previous assertions, and using a
great ahundance of testimonies. So that, as in one of his
writings he had quoted very nearly the whole of the Medea of
Euripides, aifd some one had his hook in his hands ; this latter,
when he was asked what he had got there, made answer,
** The Medea of Ohrysippus." And Apollodorus, the Athenian,
in his Collection of Dogmas, wishing to assert that what
Epicurus had written out of his own head, and without any
quotations to support his arguments, was a great deal more
than all the hooks of Ohrysippus, speaks thus (I give his
exact words), " For if any one were to take away from the
hooks of Cluysippus all the passages which he quotes from
other authors, his paper would be left empty."
These are the words of Apollodorus ; but the old woman
who lived with him, as Dioles reports, used to say that he
wrote five hundred lines every day. And Hecaton says, that
he first applied himself to philosophy, when his patrimony had
been confiscated, and seized for the royal treasury.
IV. He was slight in person, as is plain from his statue
which is in the Ceramicus, which is nearly hidden by the
equestrian statue near it ; in reference to which circumstance,
Gameades called him Cryxippus.* He was once reproached
* From Kpvirru, to hide, and Virirof, a horse.
CHBYSIPPUS. 829
by some one for not attending the lectures of Ariston, who
was drawing a great crowd after him at the time; and he
replied, ** If I had attended to the multitude I should not have
been a philosopher." And once, when he saw a dialectician
pressing hard on Cleanthes, and proposing sophistical fallacies
to him, he said, " Cease to drag that old man from more
important business, and propose these questions to us who are
young." At another time, when some one wishing to ask him
something privately, was addressing him quietly, but when he
saw a multitude approaching began to speak more energetically
he said to him : —
Alas, my brother ! now your eye is troubled ;
Tou were quite sane just now; and yet how quickly
Have you succumbed to frenzy.*
And at drinking parties he used to behave quietly, moving his
legs about however, so that a female slave once said, " It is
only the legs of Chrysippus that are drunk." And he had so
high an opinion of himself, that once, when a man asked him,
♦* To whom shall I entrust my son ?'* he said " To me, for if
I thought that there was any one better than myself, I would
have gone to him to teach me philosophy." In reference to
which anecdote they report that people used to say of him : —
He has indeed a clear and subtle head,
The rest are forms of empty sether madci*
And also : —
For if Chiysippus had not lived and taught^
The Stoic school would surely have been nought.
VI. But at last, when Arcesilaus and Lacydes, as Sotion
records in his eighth book, came to the Academy, he joined
them in the study of philosophy ; from which circumstance;
he got the habit of arguing for and against a custom, and dis-
cussed magnitudes and quantities, following the system of the
Academics.
VII. Hermippus relates, that one day, when he was teaching
in the Odeum, he was invited to a sacrifice by his pupils ;
* These lines are from the Erestes of Euripides, v. 247.
t This is a quotation from Homer, Od. x. 496. Pope's Version,
586, The Greek here is, oIoq nkvyvrai. The line in Homer stands :
oV'y '^kwvvffOat, — so : v6pe irep<reip6vHa
330 LIVES OF EMINENT PHIL0S0PHEB8.
and, that drinking some sweet unpnixed Mone, be was seized
with giddiness, and departed this life five days afterwards,
when he had lived seventy-three years ; dying in the hundred
and forty-third olympiad, as Apollodorus says in his Chronicles.
And we have written an epigram on him :—
ChiysippuB drank with open mouth some wine;
Then became giddy, and bo quickly died.
Too little reck'd he of the Porch's weal,
Or of his country's, or of his own dear life;
And BO descended to the realms of HeU.
But some people say that he died of a fit of immoderate
laughter. For that seeing his ass eatii^ figs, he told his old
woman to give the ass some unmixed wine to drink afterwards,
and then laughed so violently that he died.
y IIL He appears to have been a man of .exceeding arro-
gance. Accordingly, though he wrote such numbers of books,
he never dedicated one of them to any sovereign. And he
was contented with one single old woman, as Demetrius tells
us, in his People of the same Name. And when Ptolemy wrote
to Cleanthes, begging him either to come to him himself or to
send him some one, Sphserus went to him, but Chrysippus
slighted the invitation.
IX. However, he sent for the sons of his sister," Aristocrea
and Philocrates, and educated them; and he was the first
person who ventured to hold a school in the open air in the
Lyceum, as the before mentioned Demetrius relates.
X. There was also another Chrysippus, a native of Cnidos,
a physician, firom whom Erasistratus testifies that he received
great benefit. And another also who was a son of his, and the
physician of Ptolemy ; who, having had a false accusation
brought against him, was apprehended and punished by being
scourged. There was also a fourth who was a pupil of Era-
sistratus ; and a fifth was an author of a work called Georgics.
XI. Now this philosopher used to delight in proposing
questions of this sort. The person who reveals the myste-
ries to the uninitiated commits a sin ; the heirophant
reveals them to the uninitiated ; therefore the hierophant
commits sin ? Another was, that which is not in the city, is
* also not in the house ; but a well is not in the city, therefore,
there is not a well in the bouse. Another was, there is a
certain head ; that head you have not got ; there is then a
^ CHRYSIPPUS. 331
a head that you have not got ; therefore, you have not got a
head. Again, if a man is in Megara, he is not in Athens ;
but there is a man in Megara, therefore, there is not a man in
Athens. Again, if you say anything, what you say comes out
of your mou^ ; but you say '* a waggon," therefore a waggon
comes out of your mouth. Anotha: was, if you have not lost
a thing, you have it ; but you have not lost horns ; therefore,
you have horns. Though some attribute this sophism to
Eubulides.
XII. There are people who run Chiysippus down as having
written a great deal that is veiy shameful and indecent. For
in his treatise on the Ancient Natural Historians, he relates
the story of Jupiter and Juno very indecently, devoting six
hundred lines to what no one could repeat without polluting
his. mouth. For, as it is said, he composes this story, though
he praises it as consisting of natural details, in a way more
suitable to street walkers than to Goddesses ; and not at all
resembling the ideas which have been adopted or cited by
writers in paintings. For they were found neither in Polemo,
nor in Hypsicrates, nor in Antigonus, but were inserted by
himself. And in his treatise on Polity, he allows people to
marry their mothers, or their daughters, or their sons. And
he repeats this doctrine in his treatise on those things which
are not desirable for their own sake, in the veiy opening of it.
And in the third book of his treatise on Justice, he devotes a
thousand lines to bidding people devour even the dead.
In the second book of his treatise on Life and Means of
Support, where he is warning us to consider beforehand, how
the wise man ought to provide himself with means, he says,
" And yet why need he provide himself with means? for if it
is for the sake of living, living at all is a matter of indiffer-
ence ; if it is for the sake of pleasure, that is a matter of in.
difference too ; if it is for the sake of virtue, that is of itself
sufficient for happiness. But the methods of providing one's
self with means are ridiculous ; for instance, some derive
them from a king ; and then it will be necessary to humour
him. Some from, friendship ; fuid then friendship will become
a thing to be bought with a price. Some from wisdom ; and
then wisdom will become mercenary ; and these are the
accusations which he brings."
£ut since he has written many books of high reputation, it
332 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
has seemed good to me to give a catalogue of them, classify-
ing them according to their suhjects. They are the follow-
ing:—
Books on Logic ; Propositions ; Logical Questions ; a book
of the Contemplations of the Philosopher; six books of
Dialectic Terms addressed to Metrodorus ; one on the Techni-
cal Terms used in Dialectics, addressed to Zeno ; one called
the Art of Dialectics, addressed to Aristagoras ; four books of
Probable Conjunctive Reasons, addressed to Dioscorides.
The first set of treatises on the Logical Topics, which con-
cern things, contains : one essay on Propositions ; one on
those Propositions which are not simple ; two on the Copula-
tive Propositions, addressed to Athenades ; three on Positive
Propositions, addressed to Aristagoras ; one on Definite Pro-
positions, addressed to Athenodorus ; one on Privative Pro-
positions, addressed to Thearus; three on the Best Propositions,
addressed to Dion ; four on the Differences between Indefinite
Propositions ; two on those Propositions which are enunciated
with a reference to time ; two on Perfect Propositions.
The second set contains, one essay on a Disjunctive True
Propositions, addressed to Gorgippides ; four on a Conjunc-
tive True Proposition, also addressed to Grorgippides ; one
called, the Sect, addressed to Gorgippides ; one on the argu-
ment of Consequents; one on questions touched upon in the
three preceding treatises, and now re-examined, this also is
addressed to Gorgippides ; one on what is Possible, addressed
to Clitus ; one on the treatise of Philo, on Signification ; one
on what it is that Falsehood consists in.
The third set contains, two treatises on Imperative Propo-
sitions; two on Interrogation; four on Examination; an
epitome of the subject of Interrogation and Examination ;
four treatises on Answer; an abridgment on Answer; two
essays on Investigation.
The fourth set contains ten books on Categorems, addressed
to Metrodorus ; one treatise on what is Direct and Indirect,
addressed to Philarchus ; one on Conjunctions, addressed to
Apollonides ; four on Categorems, addressed to Pasylus.
The fifth set contains, one treatise on the Five Cases ; one
on Things defined according to the Subject ; two on Enun-
ciation, addressed to Stesagoras ; two on Appellative Nouns.
The next class of his writings refers to rules of Logic,
CHBTSIPPUS. 833
with reference to wor4s, and speech -which consists of
words.
The first set of these contains, six treatises on Singular and
Plural Enunciations ; fiye on Words, addressed to Sosigines
and Alexander ; four on the Inequality of Words, addressed
to Dion ; three on the Sorites which refer to Words ; one on
Solecisms in the Use of Words, addressed to Dionysius ; one
entitled Discourses, contraiy to Customs ; one entitled Diction,
and addressed to Dionysius.
The second set contains, five treatises on the Elements of
Speech and of Phrases ; four on the Arrangement of Phrases ;
three on the Arrangement, and on the Elements of Phrases,
addressed to PhiHp; one on the Elements of Discourse,
addressed to Nicias ; one on Correlatives.
The third set contains, two treatises against those who do
not admit Division ; four on Amhiguous Expressions, ad-
dressed to Apollos ; one. Ambiguity in Modes ; two on the
Ambiguous Use of Figures, in Conjunctive Propositions ; two
on the essay on Ambiguous Expressions, by Panthorides ; '. five
on the Introduction to the Ambiguous Expressions; one,
being an abridgment of the Ambiguous Expressions,
addressed to Epicrates ; and a collection of instances to serve
as an Introduction to the Ambiguous Expressions, in two
books.
The next class' is on the subject of that part of logic
which is conversant about reasonings and modes.
The first set of works in this class, contains, the Art of
Reasoning and of Modes, in five books, addressed to Dios-
corides ; a treatise on Keasoning, in three books ; one on the
Structure of Modes, addressed to Stesagoras, in five books ;
a comparison of the Elements of Modes ; a treatise on Eeci-
procal and Conjunctive Reasonings ; an essay to Agatha,
called also an essay on Problems, which follow one another;
a treatise, proving that Syllogistic Propositions suppose one or
more other terms; one on Conclusions, addressed to Aris-
tagoras; one essay, proving that the same reasoning can
afifect several figures ; one against those who deny that the
same reasoning can be expressed by syllogism, and without
syllogism, in two books; three treatises against those who
attack the resolution of Syllogisms ; one on the treatise on
Modes, by Philo, addressed to Timostratus ; two treatises on
334 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
Logic, in one Tolume, addressed to Timocrates and Fhilo*
mathes ; one volume of questions on Eeasonings and Modes.
The second set contains, one book of Conclusive Reason-
ings, addressed to Zeno ; one on Primary SyUogisms, which
are not demonstrative; one on the resolution of Syllo-
gisms ; one, in two books, on Captious Beascmings, addressed
to Pasjlus ; one book of Considerations on Syllogisms ; one
book of Introductory Syllogisms, addressed to Zeno ; three
of Introductory Modes, addressed also to Zeno ; five of False
Figures of Syllogism ; one of a Syllogistic Method, for the
resolution of arguments, which are not demonstrative ; one of
Eesearches into the Modes, addressed to Zeno and Philo-
mathes (but this appears to be an erroneous title).
The third set contains, one essay on Inddeutal Eeasonings,
addressed to Athenades (this again is an incorrect title);
three books of Incidental Discourses on the Medium (another
incorrect title); one essay on the Disjunctive Reasons of
Aminias.
The fourth set contains, a treatise on Hypothesis, in three
books, addressed to Meliager; a book of hypothetical rea-
sonings on the Laws, addressed also to Meliager ; two books
of hypothethical reasoning to serve as an Introduction ; two
books of hypothetical reasonings on Theorems ; a treatise in
two books, being a resolution of the Hypothetical Reason-
ings of Hedylus ; an essay, in three books, being a resolution
of the Hypothetical Reasonings of Alexander (this is an
incorrect title); two books of Expositions, addressed to
Leodamas.
The fifth* set contains, an introduction to Fallacy, ad-
dressed Aristocreon ; an introduction to False Reasonings;
a treatise in six books, on Fallacy, addressed to Aristocreon.
The sixth set contains, a treatise against those who believe
Truth and Falsehood to be the same thing. One, in two
books, against those who have recourse to division to resolve
the Fallacy, addressed to Aristocreon; a demonstrative
essay, to prove that it is not proper to divide indefinite terms ;
an essay, in three books, in answer to the objections against
the non-division of Indefinite Terms, addressed to Pasylus ; a
solution, according to the principles of the ancients, addressed
to Dioscorides ; an essay on the Resolution of the Fallacy,
addressed to Aristocreon, this is in three books ; a resolution
"■*
CHRYSIPPUS. 335
of the Hypothetical Arguments of Hedylus, in one hook,
addressed to Aristocreon and ApoUos.
The seventh set contains, a treatise against those who
contend that the premisses on the Fallacy, are false ; a
treatise on Negative Reasoning, addressed to Aristocreon, in
two hooks ; one hook of Negative Eeascmings, addressed to
Gymnasias; two hooks of a treatise on Pieafloning hy Pro-
gression, addressed to Stesagoras ; two hooks of Eeasonings hy
Interrogation, and on the Arrest,'*' addressed to Onetor ;
an essay, in two hooks, on the Corrected Argument, addressed
to Aristohulus; another on the Non-apparent Argument,
addressed to AiKenades.
The eighth set contains, an essay on the Argument Oretis,
in eight hooks, addressed to Menecrates ; a treatise, in two
hooks, on Arguments composed of a finite term, and an in-
definite term, addressed to Pasylus; another essay on the
Argument Outis, addressed to Epicrates.
The ninth set contains, two volumes of Sophisms, addressed
to Heraclides, and PoUis ; five volumes of Dialectic Argu-
ments, which admit of no solution, addressed to Dioscorides ;
an essay, in one hook, against the Method of Arcesilaus,
addressed to Sphserus.
The tenth set contains, a treatise in six hooks, against
Custom, addressed to Metrodorus; and another, in seven
hooks, on Custom, addressed to Gorgippides.
There are, therefore, works on Logic, in the four grand
classes which we have here enumerated, emhracing various
questions, without any connection with one another, to the
numher of thirty nine sets, amounting in the whole to three
hundred and eleven treatises on Logic.
The next division comprises those works which have for
their ohject, the explanation of Moral Ideas.
The first class of this division, contains an essay, giving a
description of Reason, addressed to Theosphorus ; a book of
Ethical questions ; three hooks of Principles, to serve as the
foundation of Dogmas, addressed to Philomathes ; two hooks
of definitions of Good-hreeding, addressed to Metrodorus ;
two hooks of definitions of the Bad, addressed to Metrodorus ;
* The argument by progression is the sorites. "The arrest" is the
method of encountenng the sorites, by taking some particular point at
which to stop the admissions required by the sorites.
836 UVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHEBS.
two books of definitions of Neutral Things, addressed also
to Metrodoms ; seven books of definitions of Things, accord-
ing to their genera, addressed to Metrodorus ; and two books
of Definitions, according to other systems, addressed to
Metrodorus.
The second set contains, a treatise on Things Similar, in
three books, addressed to Ahstocles ; an essay on Definitions^
in seven books, addressed to Metrodorus.
The third set contains, a treatise, in seven books, on the
^ Incorrect Objections made to Definitions, addressed to Lao-
damas ; two books of Probable Arguments bearing on Defi-
nitions, addressed to Dioscorides ; two books on Species and
Genus, addressed to Gorgippides; one book on Divisions;
two books on Contraries, addressed to Dionysius ; a book of
Probable Arguments relating to Divisions, and Genera, and
Species ; a book on Contraries.
The fourth set contains, a treatise, in seven books, on
Etymologies, addressed to Diocles ; another, in four books, -on
the same subject, addressed to the same person.
The fifth set contains, a treatise in two books, on Proverbs,
addressed to Zenodotus; an essay on Poems, addressed to
Philomathes; an essay, on How one Ought to Listen to
Poems, in two books ; an essay, in reply to Critics, addressed
to Diodorus.
The next division refers to Ethics, looked at in a general
point of view, and to the dififerent systems arising out of
them, and to the Virtues.
The first set contains, an essay against Pictures, addressed
to Timonax ; an essay on the Manner in which we express
ourselves about, and form our Conceptions of, each separate
thing; two books of Thoughts, addressed to Laodamas; an
essay, in three books, on Conception, addressed to Pythonax ;
an es^ay, that the Wise Man is not Guided by Opinion;-
an essay, in five books, on Comprehension, and Knowledge,
and Ignorance ; a treatise on Eeason, in two books ; a treatise
on the Employment of Reason, addressed to Leptines.
The second set contains, a treatise, that the Ancient
Philosophers approved of Logic, with Proofs to support the
Arguments, in two books, addressed to Zeno ; a treatise ou
Dialectics, in four books, addressed to Aristocreon; an an-
swer to the Objections urged against Dialectics, in three
CHKYSIPPUS. 337
books ; an essay on Rhetoric, in four books, addressed to
Dioscorides.
The third set contains, a treatise on Habit, in three books,
addressed to Gleon ; a treatise on Art and Want of Art, in
four books, addressed to Aristocreon ; a treatise, in four books,
on the Difference between the Virtues, addressed to Diodorus ;
a treatise, to show that all the Virtues are Equal ; a treatise
on the Virtues, in two books, addressed to PolUs.
The next division refers to Ethics, as relating to Good and
Evil.
The first set contains, a treatise in ten books, on the
Honourable, and on Pleasure, addressed to Aristocreon ; a
demonstration, that Pleasure is not the Chief Good of Man,
in four books ; a demonstration that Pleasure is not a Good
at all, in four books ; a treatise on what is said by • , .* .
* The remainder of ,the life*of Chrysippus is lost.
338
BOOK VIII.
LIFE OF PYTHAGORAS.
I. Since we have now gone through the Ionian philosophy,
which was derived from Thales, and the lives of the sevei-al
illustrious men who were the chief ornaments of that school ;
we will now proceed to treat of the Italian School, which was
founded hy Pythagoras, the son of Mnesarchus, a seal engraver,
as he is recorded to have been by Hermippus ; a native of
Samos, or as Aristoxenus asserts, a Tyrrhenian, and a native
of one of the islands which the Athenians occupied after they
had driven out the Tyrrhenians. But some authors say that
he was the son of Marmacus, the son of Hippasus, the son of
Euthyphron, the son of Cleonymus, who was an exile from
Phlias ; and that Marmacus settled in Samos, and that from
this circumstance Pythagoras was called a Samian. After
that he migrated to Lesbos, having come to Pherecydes with
letters of recommendation from Zoilus, his uncle. And having
made three silver goblets, he carried them to Egypt as a
present for each of the three priests. He had brothers, the
eldest 'of whom was named Eunomus, the middle one Tyrrhe-
nus, and a slave named Zamolxis, to whom the Getse sacrifice,
believing him to be the same as Saturn, ticcording to the
account of Herodotus.*
II. He was a pupil, as I have already mentioned, of
Pherecydes, the Syrian; and after his death he came to
Samos, and became a pupil of Hermodamas, the descendant
of Creophylus, who was by this time. an old man.
III. And as he was a young man, and devoted to learning,
he quitted his country, and got initiated into all the Grecian
and barbarian sacred mysteries. Accordingly, he went to
♦ See Herod, iv. 93.
PYTHAGORAS. 339
Egypt, on which occasion Polycrates gave him a letter of
introduction to Amasis ; and he learnt the Egyptian language,
as Antipho tells us, in his treatise on those men who have
been conspicuous for virtue, and he associated with the
Chaldseans and with the Magi.
Afterwards he went to Crete, and in company with Epi-
menides, he descended into the Idsean cave, (and in Egypt
too, he entered into the holiest parts of their temples,) and
learned all the most secret mysteries that relate to their
Gods. Then he returned back again to Samos, and finding
his country reduced under the absolute dominion of Poly-
crates, he set sail, and fled to Cix)tona in Italy. And there,
having given laws to the Italians, he gained a very high
reputation, together with his scholars, who were aboyt three
hundred in niimber, and governed the republic in a most
excellent manner ; so that the constitution was veiy nearly
an aristocracy.
IV. Heraclides Ponticus says, that he was accustomed to
speak of himself in this manner ; that he had formerly been
JSthalides, and had been accouuted the son of Mercury ;
and that Mercury had desired him to select any gift he
pleased except immortality. And that he accordingly had
requested that, whether living or dead, he might preserve the
memory of what had happened to him. While, therefore,
he was alive, he recollected everything ; and when he was
dead, he retained the same memory. And at a subsequent
period he passed into Euphorbus, and was wounded by
Menelaus. And while he was Euphorbus, he used to say
that he had formerly been -<Ethalides; and that he had
received as a gift from Mercury the perpetual transmigra-
tion of his soul, so that it was constantly transmigrating and
passing into whatever plants or animals it pleased ; and he
had also received the gift of knowing and recollecting all
that his soul had suffered in hell, and what sufferings too
are endured by the rest of the souls.
But after Euphorbus died, he said that his soul had passed
into Hermotimus ; and when he wished to convince people
of this, he went into the territory of the Branchidas, and
going into the temple of Apollo, he showed his shield which
Menelaus had dedicated there as an offering. For he said
z 2
340 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHEBS.
that he, when he sailed from Troy/ had oflFered up his shield*
which was already getting worn out, to Apollo, and that nothing
remained hut the ivory fece which was on it. And when
Hermotimus died, then he said that he had become Pyrrhus, a
fisherman of Delos ; and that he still recollected everything,
how he had been formerly ^thalides, then Euphorbus, then
Hermotimus, and then Pyrrhus. And when Pyrrhus died,
he became Pythagoras, and still recollected all the circum-
stances that I have been mentioning.
V. Now, some people say that Pythagoras did not leave bo-
hind him a single book ; but they talk foolishly ; for Heraclitus,
the natural philosopher, speaks plainly enough of him, saying,
*' Pythagoras, the son of Mnesarchus, was the most learned
of all men in history ; and having selected from these writings,
he thus formed his own wisdom and extensive learning, and
mischievous art/' And he speaks thus, because Pythagoras,
in the beginning of his treatise on Natural Philosophy, writes
in the following manor : " By the air which I breathe, and
by the water which I drink, I will not endure to be blamed
on account of this discourse."
And there are three volumes extant written by Pythagoras.
* This resembles the account which Ovid puts into the mouth of
Pythagoras, in the last book of his Metamorphoses, where he makes
him say: —
Morte carent animse, semperque priore relicta
Sede, novis domibus habitant vivuntque receptsB ;
Ipse ego, nam memini, Trojani tempora belli,
Panthorides Euphorbus eram, cui pectore quondam
Haesit in adverso gravis hasta minoris Atridse :
Agnovi Clypeum IsevsB gestamina nostrse
Kuper Abanteis templo Jononis in Argis.
Which may be translated : —
Death has no poVr th' immortal soul to slay ;
That, when its present body turns to clay.
Seeks a fresh home, and with unminish'd might
Inspires another frame with life and light.
So I myself, (well I the past recall)
When the fierce Greeks begirt Troy's holy wall,
Was brave Euphorbus ; and in conflict drear,
Poured forth my blood beneath Atrides' spear :
The shield this arm did bear I lately saw
In Juno's shrine, a trophy of that war.
' PYTHAGORAS. 841
One on Education ; one on Politics ; and one on Natural
Philosophy. But the treatise which is now extant under the
name of Pythagoras is the work- of Lysis, of Tarentum, a
philosopher of ^e Pythagorean School, who fled to Thebes,
dnd became the master of Epaminondas. And Heraclides,
the son of Sarapion, in his Abridgment of Sotion, says that
he wrote a poem in epic verse on the Universe ; and besides
that a sacred poem, which begins thus ; —
Dear youths, I warn you cherish peace divine,
And in your hearts lay deep these words of mine.
A third about the Soul ; a fourth on Piety ; a fifth entitled
Helothales, which was the name of the father of Epicharmus,
of Cos ; a sixth called Crotona, and other poems too. But
the mystic discourse which is extant under his name, they say
is really the work of Hippasus, having been composed with a
view to bring Pythagoras into disrepute. There were also
many other books composed by Aston, of Crotona, and attributed
to Pythagoras.
Ar^toxenus asserts that Pythagoras derived the greater
part of his ethical doctrines from Themistoclea, the priestess
at Delphi. And Ion, of Chios, in his Victories, says that he
wrote some poems and attributed them to Orpheus. They
also say that the poem called the ScopeadsB is by him, which
begins thus : —
Behave not shamelessly to any one.
VI. And Sosicrates, in his Successions, relates that he,
having being asked by Leon, the tyrant of the Phliasians^ who
he was, replied, " A philosopher." And adds, that he used
to compare life to a festival. " And as some people came to
a festival to contend for the prizes, and others for the purposes
of traffic, and the best as spectators ; so also in life, the men
of slavish dispositions," said he, " are bom hunters after glory
and covetousness, but philosophers are seekers after truth.*'
And thus he spoke on diis subject. But in the three treatises
above mentioned, the following principles are laid down by
Pythagoras generally.
He forbids men to pray for anything in particular for them-
selves, because they do not know what is good for them. He
calls drunkenness an expression identical with ruin, and
d4'2 LIVES OF EMINENT PEILOSOFHEBS.
rejects all superfluity, saying, '* That no one ought to exceed
the proper quantity of meat and drink.'' And on the subject
of venereal pleasures, he speaks thus : — ** One ought to sacri-
fice to Venus in the winter, not in the summer ; and in autumn
and spring in a lesser degree. But the practice is pernicious
at every season, and is nev^ good for the health." And once,
when he was asked when a man might indulge in the pleasures
of love, he replied, ** Whenever you wish to be weaker than
yourself."
YII. And he divides the life al man thus. A boy for
twenty years ; a young man {ndvtcxoi) for twenty years ; a
middle-aged man (vsav/a;) for twenty years ; an old man for
twenty years. And these different ages correspond proportion-
ably to the seasons: boyhood answers to spring; youth to
summer; middle age to autumn; and old age to winter. And
he uses yeawtrxo; here as equivalent to fiu^dxm^ and viaviai as
equivalent to av^^.
VIII. He was the first person, as Timaeus says, who
asserted that the property of friends is common, and that
friendship is equality. And his disciples used to put all their
possessions together into one store, and use them in common ;
and for five years they kept silence, doing nothing but listen
to discourses, and never once seeing Pythagoras, until they
were approved; after that time they were admitted into his
house, and allowed to see him. They also abstained from the
use of cypress coffins, because the sceptre of Jupiter was made
of that wood, as Hermippus tells us in the second book of
his account of Pythagoras.
IX. He is said to have been a man of the most dignified
appearance, and his disciples adopted an opinion respecting
him, that he was Apollo who had come firom the Hyperbo-
reans ; and it is said, that once when he was stripped naked,
he was seen to have a golden thigh. And there were many
people who affirmed, that when he was crossing the river
Nessus it addressed him by his name.
X. Timaeus, in the tenth book of his Histories, tells us,
that he used to say that women who were married to men
had the names of the Gods, being successively called virgins,
then nymphs, and subsequently mothers.
XI. It was Pythagoras also who carried geometry to per-
fection, after Moeris had first found out the principles of the
PYTHAGORAS.
k3
elements of that science, as Aristiclides tells us in the second
book of his History of Alexander ; and the part of die scienci^
to which Pythagoras applied himself above all others was
arithmetic. He also diiscovei'ed the numerical relation of
sounds on a single string: he also studied medicine. And
Apollodorus, the logician, records of him, that he saerified a
hecatomb, when he had discovered that the square of the
hypothenuse of a right-angled triangle is equal to the squares
of the sides containing the right angle. And there is m
epigram which is couched in the following terms : —
When the great Samian sage his noble problem found,
A hundred oxen dyed with their life-blood the ground.
XIT. He is also said to have been the first man who
trained athletes on meat ; and Eurymenes was the first man,
according to the statement of Phavorinus, in the third book of
his Commentaries, who ever did submit to this diet, as Wore
that time men used to tr^n themselves on dry figs and
moist cheese, and wheaten bread ; as the same Phavorinus
informs us in the eighth book of his Universal History. But
some authors state, that a trainer of the name of Pythagoras
certainly did train his athlettes on this system, but that it was
not our philosopher ; for that he even forbade men to kill
animals at all, much less would have allowed his disciples to
eat then, as having a right to live in common with mankind.
And this was his pretext; but in reality, he prohibited the
eating of animals, because he wished to train and accustom
men to simplicity of life, so that all their food should be easily
procurable, as it would be, if they ate only such things as
required no fire to dress them, and if they drank plain water ;
for from this diet they would derive health of body and
acuteness of intellect.
The only altar at which he worshipped was that of Apollo
the Father, at Delos, which is at the back of the altar of
Ceratinus, because wheat, and barley, and cheese-cakes are
the only offerings laid upon it, being not dressed by fire ; and
no victim is ever slain there, as Aristotle tells us in his
Constitution of the Delians. They say, too, that he was the
first person who asserted that the soul went a necessary circle,
344 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHEBS.
being changed about and confined at different times in differ-
ent bodies.
XIII. He was also the first 'person who introduced mea-
sures and weights among the Greeks ; as Aristoxenus the
musician informs us.
XIY. Parmenides, too, assures us, that he was the first
person who asserted the identity of Hesperus and Lucifer.
XV. And he was so greatly admired, that they used to say
that his friends looked on all his sayings as i^e oracles of
God.* And he himself says in his writings, that he had come
among men after having spent two hundred and seven years
in the shades below. Therefore the Lucanians and the
Peucetians, and the Messapians, and the Eomans, flocked
around him, coming with eagerness to hear his discourses ;
but until the time of Philolaus, there were no doctrines of
Pythagoras ever divulged ; and he was the first person who
published the three celebrated books which Plato wrote to
have purchased for him for a hundred minae. Nor were the
number of his scholars who used to come to him by night
fewer than six hundred. And if any of them had ever been
permitted to see him, they wrote of it to their Mends, as if
they had gained some great advantage.
The people of Metapontum used to call his house the
temple of Ceres ; and the street leading to it they called the
street of the Muses, as we are told by Phavorinus in his
Universal History.
And the rest of the Pythagoreans used to say, according to
the account given by Aristoxenus, in the tenth book of his
Laws on Education, that his precepts ought not to be divulged
to all the world ; and Xenophilus, the Pythagorean, when he
w£is asked what was the best way for a man to educate his son,
said, " That he must first of all take care that he was bom in
a city which enjoyed good laws."
Pythagoras, too, formed many excellent men in Italy, by
* This passage has been interpreted in more ways than one. Caaau-
bon thinks with great probability that there is a hiatus in the text. I
have endeavoured to extract a meaning out of what remains. Compare
Samuel ii. 16, 23. ''And the counsel of Ahitophel, which he counselled
in those days, was as if a man had enquired at the oracle of God ; so
was all the counsel of Ahitophel both with David and with Absidom."
PYTHAGORAS. di5
his precepts, and among them Zaleucus,* and Charondas,f
the lawgivers.
XVI. For he was very eminent for his power of attracting
friendships ; and among other things, if ever he heard that
any one had any community of symbols with him, he at once
made him a companion and a friend.
XVII. Now, what he called his symbols were such as these.
•* Do not stir the fire with a sword." " Do not sit down on a
bushel.** " Do not devour your heart." " Do not aid men in
discarding a burden, but in increasing one." '' Always have
your bed packed up." " Do not bear the image of a God on &
ring." " Efface the traces of a pot in the ashes." " Do not
wipe a seat with a lamp." ** Do not make water in the sun-
* Zaleucus was the celebrated lawgiver of the Epizephyrian Locrians,
and is said -to have been originally a slave employed by a shepherd,
and to have been set free and appointed lawgiver by the direction of
an oracle, in consequence of his announcing some excellent laws, which
he represented Minerva as having commnnicated to him in a dream.
Diogenes, is wrong however, in calling him a disciple of Pythagoras
(see Bentley on Fhalaris), as he lived about a hundred years before his
time ; his true date being 660 B.C. The code of Zaleucus is stated to
have been the first collection of written laws that the Greeks possessed.
Their character was that of great severity. They have not come down
to us. His death is said to have occurred thus. Among his laws was
one forbidding any citizen to enter the senate house in arms, under
the penalty of death. But in a sudden emergency, Zaleucus himself, in
a moment of forgetfulness, transgressed his own law : on which he slew
himself, declaring that he would vindicate his law. (Eustath. ad. H. L
p. 60). Diodorus, however, tells the same story of Charondas.
f Charondas was a lawgiver of Catana, who legislated for his own
city and the other towns of Challidian origin in Magna Grecia, such as
Zancle, Nazos, Leontini, Eubsea, Mylse, Himera, Callipolis, and Rhegium.
His laws have not been preserved to us, with the exception of a few
judgments. They were probably in verse, for Athenseus says that they
were sung in Aliens at banquets. Aristotle tells us that they were
adapted to an aristocracy. It is much doubted whether it is really
true that he was a disciple of Pythagoras, though we are not sure of
his exact time, so that we cannot pronounce it as impossible as in the
preceding case. He must have lived before the time of Anaxilaus, tyrant
of Rhegium, who reigned from RO. 494 to B.O. 476, because he abolished
the laws of Charondas, which had previously been in force in that city.
Diodorus gives a code of laws which he states that Charondas gave to
the city of Thurii, which was not founded till B.c. 443, when he must
certainly have been dead a long time. There is one law of lus pre-
served by Stobseus, which is probably authentic, since it is found in a
fragment of Theophrastus ; enacting that all buying and selling shall
be transacted by ready money only.
346 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHEBS.
shine." " Do not walk in Ae main street." " Do not offer
your right hand lightly.** " Do not cherish swallows under
your roof." " Do not cherish birds with crooked talons." ** Do
not defile ; and do not stand upon the parings of your nails, or
the cuttings of your hair." ** Avoid a sharp sword." " When
you are travelling abroeid, look not back at your own borders."
Now the precept not to stir fire Vith a sword meant, not to
provoke the anger or swelling pride of powerful men ; not to
violate the beam of the balance meant, not to transgress £sdr-
ness and justice ; not to sit on a bushel is to have an equal
care for the present and for the future, for by the bushel is
meant one's daily food. By not devouring one's heart, he
intended to show that we ought not to waste away our souls
with grief and sorrow. In the precept that a man when
travelling abroad should not turn his eyes back, he recom-
mended those who were departing from life not to be desirous
to live, and not to be too much attracted by the. pleasures here
on earth. And the oihet symbols may be explained in a
similar manner, that we may not be too prolix here.
XYIII. And above all things, he used to prohibit the eating
of the erythinus, and the melanurus ; and also, he enjoined
his disciples to abstain from the hearts of animals, and from
beans. And Aristotle informs us, that he sometimes used also
to add to these prohibitions paunches and mullet. And some
authors assert that he himself used to be contented with honey
and honeycomb, and bread, and that he never drank wine in
the day time. And his desert was usually vegetables, either
boiled or raw ; and he very rarely ate fish. His dress was
white, very clean, and his bed-clothes were also whitd, and
woollen, for linen had not yet been introduced into that
country. He was never known to have eaten too much, or to
have drunk too much, or to indulge in the pleasures of love.
He abstained wholly from laughter, and from all such indul-
gences as jests and idle stories. And, when he was angry, he
never chastised any one, whether slave or freeman. He used
to call admonishing, feeding storks.
He used to practise divination, as far ''as auguries and
auspices go, but not by means of burnt offerings, except only
the burning of frankincense. And all the sacnfices which he
offered consisted of inanimate things. But some, however,
assert that he did sacrifice animals, limiting himself to cocks,
PYTHAGOEAS. 847
and sucking kids, which are called a^deX/o/, but that he very
rarely offered lambs. Aristoxenus, however, affirms that he
permitted the eatincr of all other animals, and only abstained
from, oxen used in ^riculture, and from nuns. '
XIX. The same author tells us, ds I have already mentioned,
that he received his doctrines from Themistoclea, ait , Delphi.
And Hieronymus says, that when he descended to the shaded
below, he saw the soul of Hesiod bound to a brazen pillar, and
gnashing its teelli ; and that of Homer suspended from a tree,
and snakes around it, as a punishment fot die things that they
bad said of the Gods. And that those people also were punished
who refrained &om commerce with their wives ; and that on
account of thisJie was greatly honoured by the people of
Orotona.
But Aristippus, of Cytene, in his Accoimt of Natural Philo-
sophers, says that Pythagoras derived his name from the fact
of his speaking (a/o^sus/v) truth no less than the God at Delphi
It is said that he used to admonish his disciples to repeat
these lines to themselves whenever they returned home to tieir
houses : —
In what have I transgreBs'd ? What have I done f
What that I should haye done have I omitted ? '
And that he used to forbid them to offer victims to the Gods,
ordering them to worship only at those altars which were un-
stained with blood. He forbade them also to swear by the
Gods ; saying, ** That every man ought so to exercise himself,
as to be worthy of belief without an oath.'* He also taught
men that it behoved them to honour their elders, thinking that
which was precedent in point of time more honourable ; just
as in the world, the rising of the sun was more so than the
setting ; in life, the beginning more so than the end ; and in
animals, production more so than destruction.
Another of his rules was that men should honour the Gods
above the dsemones, heroes above men ; and of all men parents
were entitled to the highest degree of reverence. Another,
that people should associate with one another in such a way as
not to make their friends enemies, but to render their enemies
friends. Another was that they should think nothing exclu-
sively their own. Another was to assist the law, and to make
\.
848 LIVES OF EinXEXT PHILOSOPHEBS.
war upon lawlessness. Not to destroy or injure a cultivated
tree, nor any animal either which does not injure men. That
modesty and decorum consisted in never yielding to laughter,
and yet not looking stem. He taught that men should avoid
too much flesh, that they should in travelling let rest and
exertion alternate ; that they should exercise memory ; that
they should never say or do anything in anger ; that they should
not pay respect to every kind of divination ; that they should
use songs set to the lyre ; and hy hymns to the Gods and to
eminent men, display a reasonahle gratitude to them,
i He also forhade his disciples to eat heans, hecause, as they
were flatulent, they greatly partook of animal properties [he
also said that men kept their stomachs in hotter order by
avoiding them]; and that such abstinence made ^ the visions
which appear in one's sleep gentle and free from agitation.
Alexander also says, in his Successions of Philosophers, that
he found the following dogmas also set down in the Commen-
taries of Pythagoras : —
That the monad was the beginning of everything. From
the monad proceeds an indefinite duad, which is subordinate
to the monad as to its cause. That from the monad and the
indefinite duad proceed numbers. And from numbers signs.
And from these last, lines of which plane figures consist. And
from plane figures are derived soHd bodies. And from solid
bodies sensible bodies, of which last there are four elements ;
fire, water, earth, and air. And that the world, which is endued
with life, and intellect, and which is of a spherical figure,
having the earth, which is also spherical, and inhabited all
over in its centre, results from a combination of these elements,
and derives its ihotion from them ; and also that there are
antipodes,* and that what is below, as respects us, is above in
respect of them.
* This doctrine is alluded to doubtfully by Virgil, Qeorg. L 247.
mic, ut perhibent, aut intempesta silet noz
Semper, et obductft densantur nocte tenebrse ;
Aut redit a nobis Aurora, diemque redueit ;
Nosque ubi primus equis oriens afflavit anhelis,
mic sera rubens accendit lumina Vesper.
ThuB translated by Dryden, L 338 : —
There, as they say, perpetual night is found,
In silence brooding o'er th' unhappy ground.
PYTHAGORAS. • J349
He also taught that light and darkness, and cold and heat,
and dryness and moisture, were equally divided in the world ;
and that, while heat was predominant it wa^ summer ; while
cold had the mastery it was winter ; when dryness prevailed
it was spring ; and when moisture preponderated, winter. And
while all these qualities were on a level, then was the loveliest
season of the year ; of which the flourishing spring was the
wholesome period, and the season of autumn the most pernicious
one. Of the day, he said that the flourishing period was the
morning, and the fading one the evening ; on which accoimt
that also was the least healthy time.
Another of his theories was, that the air around the earth
was immoveahle, and pregnant with, disease, and that every-
thing in it was mortal ; hut that the upper air was in perpetual
motion, and pure and saluhrious ; and that everything in that
was immortal, and on that account divine. And that the sun,
and the moon, and the stars, were all Gods ; for in them the
warm principle predominates which is the cause of life. And
that the moon derives its light from the sun. And that there
is a relationship hetween men and the Gods, hecause men
partake of the divine principle ; on which account also, God
exercises his providence for our advantage. Also, that £Eite is
the cause of the arrangement of the world both generally and
particularly. Moreover, that a ray from the sun penetrated
both the cold aether and the dense aether ; and they ' call the
air (a^^), the cold aether {-^^vxi^v ai6s^a), and the sea and
moisture they call the dense aedier ('fra^uv aadi^a). And this
ray descends into the depths, and in this way vivifies every-
thing. And everything which partakes of tiie principle of
heat lives, on which account also plants are animated beings ;
but that all living things have not necessarily souls. And
that the soul is a something torn off from the aether, both
warm and cold, from its partaking of the cold aether. And
that the soul is something different from life. Also, that it is
immortal, because that from which it has been detached is
immortal.
Also, that animals are born from one another by seeds, and
Or when Aurora leaves our northern sphere,
She lights the downward heaVn and rises there :
And when on us she breathes the living light
Ked Vesper kindles there the tapers of the night.
d50 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
that it is impossible for there to be any spontaneous prodaction
bj the earth. And that seed is a drop from the brain which
contains in itself a warm vapour ; and that when this is applied
to the womb, it transmits virtue, and moisture, and blood from
the brain, from which flesh, and siiiews, and bones, and hair,
and the whole body are produced. And from the vapour is
produced the soul, and also sensation. And that the infemt
first becomes a solid body at the end of forty days; but,
according to the principles of harmony, it is not perfect till
seven, or perhaps nine, or at most ten months, and then it is
brought forth. And that it cont^iBS in itself all the principles
of life, which are all connected together, and by their uniou
and combination form a harmonious whole, each of thenx
developing itself at the appointed time.
The senses in general, and especially the sight, are a vapour
of excessive warmth, and on this account a man is said to see
through air, and t^ugh water. For the hot principle is
opposed by the cold one ; since, if the vapour in the eyes were
cold, it would have the same temperature as the air, and so
would be dissipated. As it is, in some passages he calls the
eyes the gates of the sun. And he speaks in a similar manner
of hearing, and of the other senses.
He also says that the soul of man is divided into three
parts ; into intuition (voD;), and reason (^^0* ^^^ mind (dvfihi),
and that the first and last divisions are found also in other
animals, but that the middle one, reason, is only found in
man. And that the chief abode of the soul is in those pa^
of the body which are between the heart and the brain. And
that that portion of it which is in the heart is the mind (dufihg) ;
but that deliberation (vou^), and reason (f f^v), reside in the
brain.*
Moreover, that the senses are drops from them ; and that
the reasoning sense is immortal, but the others are mortal.
And that the soul is nourished by the blood ; and that reasons
are the winds of the soul. That it is invisible, and so are its
reasons, since the aether itself is invisible. That the links of
the soul are the veins, and the arteries, and the nerves. But
that when it is vigorous, and is by itself in a quiescent state,
* vovc appears, in a division like this, to be the deliberative part of
the mind ; ^pt^v, the rational part of the intellect : 9vfi6^, that part
with which the passions are ooncemed.
PYTHAGORAS. 351
then its links are words and actions. That when it is cast
forth upon the earth it wanders about, resembling the body.
Moreover, that Mercury is the steward of ;the soiUs, and that
on this account he has the name of Conductor, and Commercial,
and Infernal, since it is he who conducts the souls from their
bodies, and from earth, ^d sea ; and that he conducts the
pure souls to the highest region, and that he does not allow
the impure ones to approach them, nor to come near one
another ; but commits them to be bound in indissoluble fetters
by the Furies. The Pythagoreans also assert, that the whole
air is full of souls, and that Uiese are those which are accounted
dsemonesy and heroes. Also, that it is by them that dreams
are sent among men, and also the tokens of disease and health ;
these last too, being sent not only to men, but to sheep also,
and other cattle. Also, that it is they who are concerned with
purifications, and expiations, and all kinds of divination, and
oracular predictions, and things of that kind.
They also say, that the most important privilege in man is,
the being able to persuade his soul to either good or bad. And
that men are happy when they have a good soul ; yet, that
they are never quiet, and that they never retain the same mind
long. Also, that an oath is justice ; and that on that account,
Jupiter is called Jupiter of Oaths ("O^x/o^). Also, that virtue
is harmony, and health, and universal good, and God ; on which
account everything owes its existence and consistency to har-
mony. Also, that friendship is a harmonious equality.
j^ Again, they teach that one ought not to pay equal honours
to Gods and to heroes ; but that one ought to honour the Gods
at all times, extolling them with praises, clothed in white
garments, and keeping one's body chaste ; but that one ought
not to pay such honour to the heroes till after midday. Also,
that a state of purity is brought about by purifications, and
waahings, and sprinklings, and by a man's purifying himself
from all funerals, or concubinage, or pollution of every kind,
and by abstaining from all flesh that has either been killed or
died of itself, and from mullets, and from melanuri, and from
eggs, and from such animals as lay eggs, and from beans, and
from other things which are prohibited by those who have the
charge of the mysteries in the temples.
. And Aristotle says, in his treatise on Bpans, that Pythagopas
enjoined his disciples to abstain from beans, either because
352 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHEBS.
they resemble some part of the human body, or because they
, are like the gates of hell (for they are the only plants without
parts) ; or because they dry up other plants, or because they
are representatives of imiversal nature, or because they are
used in elections in oligarchical governments. He also forbade
his disciples to pick up what fell from the table, for the sake
of accustoming them not to eat immoderately, or else because
such things belong to the dead.
But Anstophanes says, that what flails belongs to the heroes ;
saying, in his Heroes : —
Keyer taste the things which fall
i From the table on the floor.
He also forbade his disciples to eat white poultry, because
a cock of that colour was sacred to Month, and was also a
suppliaut. He was also accounted a good animal ; * and he
was sacred to the God Month, for he indicates the time.
The Pythagoreans were also forbidden to eat of all fish that
were sacred ; on the ground that the same animals ought not
to be served up before both Gods and men, just as the same
things do not belong to freemen and to slaves. Now, white
is an indication of a good nature, and black of a bad one.
Another of the precepts of Pythagoras was, that men ought
not to break bread ; because in ancient times friends used to
assemble around one loaf, as they even now do among the
barbarians. Nor would he allow men to divide bread which
unites them. Some think that he laid down this rule in ref^-
ence to the judgment which takes place in hell ; some because
this practice engenders timidity in war. According to others,
what is alluded to is the Union, which presides over the
government of the universe.
Another of his doctrines was, that of all solid figures the
sphere was the most beautiful ; and of all plane figures, the
circle. That old age and all diminution were similar, and
also increase and youth were identical. That health was the
permanence of form, and disease the destruction of it. Of salt
his opinion was, that it ought to be set before people as a
reminder of justice ; for salt preserves everything which it
* There is a great variety of suggestions as to the proper reading
here. There is evidently some corruption in the text.
PTTHAG0RA8. S53
touches, and it is composed of the purest partidds of water and
sea.
These are* the doctrines which Alexander asserts that he
discovered in the* Pythagorean treatises ; and Aristotle gives
a similar account of them.
XV. Timon, in his Silli, has not left unnoticed the dignified
appearance of Pythagoras, when he attacks him on other points.
And his words are tihese : —
Pythagoras, who often teaches
Precepts of magic, and with speeches
Of long high-sounding diction draws,
From gaping crowds, a vain applause.
«
And respecting his having been different people at different
times, Xenophanes adds his evidence in an elegiac poem which
commences thus : —
Now I will on another subject touch,
And lead the way. ^
And the passage in which he mentions Pythagoras is as
follows ; —
They say that once, as passing by he saw
A dog severely beaten, he did pity him.
And spoke as follows to the man who beat him : —
** Stop now, and beat him not ; since in his body,
Abides the soul of a dear friend of mine.
Whose voice I recognized as he was crying."
These are the words of Xenophanes.
Cratinus also ridiculed him in his Pythagorean Woman ;
but in his Tarentines, he speaks thus : —
They are accustomed, if by chance they see
A private individual abroad.
To try what powers of argument he has,
How ne can speak and reason : and they bother him
With strange antithesis and forced contusions,
Enron, comparisons, and magnitudes,
Till they have filled and quite petplex'd hifl min4.
And Innesimachus says in Ins Alcmaeon : —
As we do sacxsftce to the Fhosbus whom -
Pythagoras worships, never eating aught
Which has the breath of life.
Aostophon says in his Pythagorean : —
A ▲
354 UVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
A, He Mid that when he did descend below
Among the shades in Hell, he there beheld
All men who e'er had died ; and there he saw.
That the Pythagoreans differed much
From all the rest ; for that with them alone
Did Pluto deign to eat^ much honouring
Their pious habits.
JJ. He's a civil God,
If he likes eating with such dirty fellows.
And again, in the same play he says : —
They eat
Nothing but herbs and vegetables, and drink
Pure water only. But their lice are such.
Their cloaks so dirty, and their unwash'd scent
So rank, that no one of our younger men
WiU for a moment bear them.
XXI. Pythagoras died in this manner. When he was
sitting with some of his companions in Mile's house, some
dhe of those whom he did not think worthy of admission into
it, was excited by envy to set fire to it. But some say that
the people of Crotona themselves did this, being afraid lest he
might aspire to the tyranny. And that Pythagoras was caught
as he was trying to escape ; and coming to a place full of beans,
he stopped there, saying that it was better to be caught than
to trample on the beans, and better to be slain that! to speak ;
and so he was murdered by those who were pursuing him.
And in this way, also, most of his companions were slain ;
being in number about forty; but that a very few did escape,
among whom were Archippus, of Tarentum, and Lysis,
whom I have mentioned before.
But Dicsearchus relates that Pythagoras died afterwards,
having escaped as far as the temple of the Muses, at Metar
pontum, and that he died there of starvation, having abstained
from food for forty days. And Heraclides says, in his abridgment
of the life of Satyrus, that after he had buried Pherecydes in
Delos, he returned to Italy, and finding there a superb ban-
quet prepared at the house of Milo, of Cortona, he left Cro-
tona, and went to Metapontum, and there put an end to his
life by starvation, not wishing to live any longer. But Her-
mippus says, that when there was war between the people of
Agrigentum and the Syracusans, Pythagoras went out with
his usual companions, and took the part of the Agrigentines :
PYTHAGORAS. ^ 366
and as they were put to flight, he ran all round a field of
beans, instead of crossing it, and so was slain by the Syracu-
sans ; and that the rest, being about five-and-thirty in num-
ber, were burnt at Tarentum, when they were trying to excite
a sedition in the state against the principal magistrates.
Hermippus also relates another story about Pythagoras.
For he says that when he was in Italy, he made a subterra-
neous apartment, and charged his mother to write an account
of everything that took place, marking the time of each on a
tablet, and then to send them down to him, until he came up
again ; and that his mother did so ; and that Pythagoras came
up again after a certain time, lean, and reduced to a skeleton ;
and tiiat he came into the public assembly, and said that he
had arrived from the shades below, and then he recited to
them all that had happened during his absence. And they,
being charmed by what he told them, wept and lamented, and
believed that Pythagoras was a , divine being ; so that they
even entrusted their wives ito him, as likely to learn some
good from him ; and that they too were called Pythagoreans.
And' this is the story of Hermippus.
XXII. And Pythagoras had a wife, whose name was
Theano ; the daughter of Brontinus, of Crotona. But some
say that she was the wife of Brontinus, and only a pupil of
Pythagoras. And he had a daughter named Damo, as Lysis
mentions in his letter to Hipparchus ; where he speaks thus
of Pythagoras : "And many say that you philosophize in public,
as Pythagoras also used to do; who, when he had entrusted
his Commentaries to Damo, his daughter, charged her to
divulge them to no person out of the house. And she, though
she might have sold his discourses for much money, would not
abandon them, for she thought poverty and obedience to her
fathers injunctions more valuable than gold; and that too,
though she was a woman."
He had also a son, named Telauges, who was the sticcessor
of his father in his school, and who, according to some authors,
was the teacher of Empedodes. At least Hippobotus relates
that Empedocles said : —
** Telauges, noble youth, whom in due time,
Theano bore to wise FyChagoras."
But there is no book extant, which is the work of Telauges,
A A 2
d56 Uy^ OF EBOKENT FHILOSOPHEBS.
tboogh there are some extant, wliich are attributed to his
mother Theano. And they tell a story of her, that once, when
she was asked how long a woman ought to be absent from her
husband to be pure, she said, the moment she leaves her
own husband, she is pure ; but she is never pure at all, after she
leaves any one else. And she recommended a woman, who was
going to her husband, to put off her modesty with her clothes,
and when she left him, to resume it again with her clothes ;
and when she was asked, *' What clothes ?** she said, '' Those
which cause you to be called a woman.**
XXIII. Now Pythagoras, as HeraclideSy the son of Sara-
pian, relates, died when he was eighty years of age ; accord-
ing to his own account of his age, but according to tiie common
acoount, he was more than ninety. And we have written a
sportive epigram on him, which is couched in the following
terms:-—
You're notthe only man who has abstained
From living food, for so likewiBe have we ;
And who, Fd like to know did ever taste
Food while alive, most sage Pythagoras ?
When meat is boil'd, or roasted well and salted,
I don't think it can well be csJled living.
Which, therefore, without scruple then we eat it,
And call it no more living flesh, but meat.
And another, which runs thus :-—
Pythagoras was'so wise a man, that he
Never eat meat himself, and called it sin.
And yet he gave good joints of beef to others.
So that I marvel at his principles ;
Who others wronged, by teaching them to do
What he believed unholy for himself,
And another, as follows :—
Should you Phythagoras* dootrine wish to know^
Look on the centre of Euphorbus* shield.
For he asserts there lived a man of old,
And when he had no longer an existence
« He still could say that he had been alive,
Or else he would not BtQl be living now.
And this one too :
Alas ! alas t why did Pythagoras hold
Beans in such wondrous honour? Why, besides,
Did he thus die among his choice companions ?
PYTHAOORAa 857
There was a field of beans ; and so the sage,
Died in the conunon road of Agrigentum,
Bather than trample down his fayourite beans.
XXIV. And he flourished about the sixtieth olympiad:
and his system lasted for nine or ten generations. And the
last of the Pythagoreans, whom Aristoxenus knew, were
Xenophilus, the Ghalcidean, from Thrace ; and Fhanton, the
Phliasian, and Echurates, and Diodes, and Folymnestus, who
were also Phliasiaiis, and they were disciples of Philolaus
and Eurytus, of Tarentum.
XXy. And there were four men of the name of Pytha-
goras, about the same time, at no great distance from one
another. One was a natiye of Crotona, a man who attained
tyrannical power ; the second was a Phliasian, a trainer of
wrestlers, as some say ; the third was a native of Zacynthus ;
the fourth was this our philosopher, to whom they say the
mysteries of philosophy belong, in whose time that proverbial
phrase, " Ipse dixit," was introduced into ordinary life. Some
also affirm, that there was another man of tJie name of
Pythagoras, a statuary of Ehodes ; who is believed to have
been the first discoverer of rhythm and ' proportion ; and
another was a Samian statuary ; and another an orator, of no
reputation ; and another was a physician, who wrote a treatise
on Squills ; and also some essays on Homer ; and another
was a man, who wrote a history of the afi&urs of the Dorians,
as we are told by Dionysius.
But Eratosthenes says, as Phavorinus quotes him, in the
eighth book of his Universal History, that this philosopher,
of whom we are speaking, was the first man who ever prac-
tised boxing in a scientific manner, in the forty-eighth olym-
piad, having his hair long, and being clothed in a purple
robe ; and that he was rejected from the competition among
boys, and being ridiculed for his application, he immediately
entered among the men, and came o£f victorious. And this
statement is confirmed among other things, by the epigram
which ThesBtetus composed : —
Stranger, if e*er you knew Pythagoras,
Pythagoras, the man with flowing hair.
The celebrated boxer, erst of Samos ;
I am Pythagoras. And if you ask
A citizen of Elis of my deeds,
Toull surely think he is relating fables.
358 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHEBS.
PhaYorinos says, tbat he employed definitions, on account
of the mathematical suhjects to which he applied himself.
And that Socrates and those who were his pupils, did so still
more ; and that thej were subsequently followed in this by
Aristotle and the Stoics.
He too, was the first person, who ever gave the name of
7i6it,mg to the universe, and the first who called the earth
round; though Theophrastus attributes tbis to Parmenides,
and Zeno to Hesiod. They say too, that Oylon used to be a
constant adversary of his, as Antidicus was of Socrates. And
this epigram also used to be repeated, concerning Pythagoras
the athlete : —
Pythagoras of Samos. son of Crates,
Came while a child to the Olympic games,
Eager to battle for the prize in boxing.
XXVI. There is a letter of this philosopher extant, which
is couched in the following terms : —
PYTHAGORAS TO ANAXIMENES.
"You too, my most excellent friend, if you were not
superior to Pythagoras, in birth and reputation, would have
migrated from Miletus and gone elsewhere. But now the
reputation of your father keeps you back, which perhaps
would have restrained me too, if I had been like Anaximenes.
But if you, who are the most eminent man, abandon the
cities, all their ornaments will be taken from them, and the
Median power will be more dangerous to them. Nor is it
always seasonable to be studying astronomy, but it is more
honourable to exhibit a regard for one's country. And I my-
self am not always occupied about speculations of my own
fancy, but I am busied also with the wars which the Italians
are waging against one another.
But since we have now finished our account of Pythagoras,
we must also speak of the most eminent of the Pythagoreans.
After whom, we must mention those who are spoken of more
promiscuously in connection with no particular school ; and
then we will connect the whole series of philosophers worth
speaking of, till we arrive at Epicurus, as we have already
promised.
EMPEDOCLES. 359
Now Jelanges and Theano we have mentioned ; and we
must now speak of Empedocles, in the first place, for, accord-
ing to some accounts, he was a pupil of Pythagoras.
LIFE OF EMPEDOCLES.
I. Empbdocles, as Hippobotus relates, was the son of
Meton, the son of Empedocles, and a citizen of Agrigentum.
And Timaeus, in the fifteenth book of his Histories, gives the
same account, adding that Empedocles, the grandfather of the'
poet, was also a most eminent man. And Hermippus tells
the same story as Timseus ; and in the same spirit Heraclides,
in his treatise on Diseases, relates that he was of an illus-
trious family, since his father bred a fine stud of horses.
Erastothenes, in his List of the Conquerors at the Olympic
Games, says, that the father of Meton gained the victory in
the seventy-first olympiad, quoting Aristotle as his authority
for the assertion.
But ApoUodorus, the grammarian, in his Chronicles, says
that he was the son of Meton; and Glaucus says that he
came to Thurii when the city was only just completed. And
then proceeding a little further, he adds : —
And some relate that he did flee from thence,
And came to Syracuse, and on their side
Did fight in horrid war against th* Athenians ;
But those men seem to me completely, wrong —
For by this time he must have been deceased,
Or very old, which is not much believed ;
For Anstotle, and Heraclides too,
Say that he died at sixty years of age.
But certainly the person who got the victory with a single
horse in the seventy-first olympiad was a namesake of this
man, and that it is which deceived ApoUodorus as to the age
of this philosopher.
But Satyrus, in his Lives, asserts, that Empedocles was the
son of Exsenetus, and that he also left a son who was named
860 LIVES OF EMnnENT PHILOSOPHEBS.
£xfl9iieta8. And that in the same Olympiad, he himself
gained the Yictorj with the single horse ; and his son, in
wrestling, or, as Heraclides says in his Abridgment, in
running. But I have found in the Commentaries of Phayo-
rinus, &at Empedocles sacrificed, and gave as a feast to the
spectators of the games, an ox made of honey and flour, and
that he had a brother named Oallicratidas.
, But JelangeSy the son of Pythagoras, in his letters to
Philolaus, says that Empedocles was the son of Archinomus ;
and that he was a citizen of Agrigentom, he himself asserts &t
the beginning of his Purifications.
Friends, who the mighty citadel inhabit,
Which crowns the golden waves^f AcragaSL
And this is enough to say about his family.
II. Timseus, in his ninth book, relates that he was a pupil
of Pythagoras, saying that he was afterwards convicted of
having divulged his doctrines, in the same way as Plato was,
and therefore that he was forbidden from thenceforth to
attend his school. And they say that Pythagoras himself
mentions him when he says : —
•
And in that band there was a learned man,
Of wondrous wisdom ; one, who of all man
Had the profoundest weal'Ui of intelle^ct.
But some say that when the philosopher says this, he is
referring to Parmenides.
Neanthes relates, that till the time of Philolaus and Empe-
docles, the Pythagoreans used to admit all persons indis-
criminately into their school ; but when Empedocles made
their doctrines public by means of his poems, then they made
a law to admit no Epic poet And they say that the same
thing happened to Plato ; for that he too was excluded from
the school. But who was the teacher of the Pythagorean
school that Empedocles was a pupil of, they do not say ; for,
as for the letter of Jelanges, in which he is stated to have
been a pupil of Hippasus and Brontinus, that is not worthy
of belief. But Theophrastus says that he was an imitator
and a rival of Parmenides, in his poems, for that he too had
delivered his opinions on natural philosophy in epic verse.
Hermippus, however, says that he was an imitator, not of
Parmenides, but of Xenophanes with whom he lived ; and
EBfPEPOCLBS. 861
that he imitated his epic style, and that it was at a later
period that he fell in with the Pythagoreans. But Alcidamas,
in his Natural Philosophy, says, that Zeno and Empedocles
were pupils of Parmenides, ahout the same time ; and that
they subsequently seceded from him ; and that Zeno adopted
a philosophical system pectdiar to himself; but that Empedo-
cles became a pupil of Anaxagoras and Pythagoras, and that
he imitated the pompous demeanour, and way of life, and
gestures of the one, and the system of Natural Philosophy of
the other.
III. And Aristotle, in his Sophist, says that Empedocles
was the first person who invented rhetoric, and Zeno the first
person who invented dialectics. And in his book on Poetry,
he says, that Empedocles was a man of Homeric genius, and
endowed with great power of language, and a great master of
metaphor, and a man who employed all the successful artifices
of poetry, and also that when he had written several poems,
and among them one on the passage of the Hellespont, by
Xerxes, and also the procemium of a hymn to Apollo, his
daughter subsequently burnt them, or, as Hieronymus says,
Ids sister, burning the prooBmium unintentionally, but the
Persian poem on purpose, because it was incomplete. And
speaking generally, he says that he wrote tragedies and
political treatises.
But Heraclides, the son of Sarapion, says that the tragedies
were the work of some other Empedocles ; and Hieronymus
says that he had met with forty-thiee. Neanthes, too, affirms
that when he was a young man, he w|ote tragedies, and that
he himself had subsequently met with them ; and Satyrus, in
his Lives, states that he was a physician, and also a most
excellent orator. And accordingly, that Gorgias, of Leontini,
was his pupU, a man of the greatest eminence as a rhetorician,
and one who left behind him a treatise containing a complete
system of the art ; and who, as we are told by Apollodorus,
in his Chronicles, lived to the age of a hundred and nine
years.
IV. Satyrus tells us that he used to say that he had been
present when Empedocles was practising magic ; and that he
professes this science^ and many others too in his poems when
he says :— -
36'^ LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
And all the drugB wliich can relieve disease,
Or soften the approach of age, shall be
Revealed to your inquiries ; I do know them,
And I to you alone will them disclose.
Tou shall restrain the fierce unbridled winds,
Which, rushing o'er the earth, bow down the com.
And crush the fBurmer's hopes. And when you wUl,
Tou shall recall them back to sweep the land :
Then you shall learn to dry the rainy clouds.
And bid warm summer cheer the heart of men.
Again, at your behest^ the drought shall yield
To wholesome shoVrs : when you give the word
Hell shall restore its dead.
y. And Timseus, in his eighteenth book, says, that this
man was held in great esteem on many accounts ; for that
once, when the etesian gales were blowing violently, so as to
injure the crops, he ordered some asses to be flayed, and some
bladders to be made of their hides, and these he placed on
the hills and high places to catch the wind. And so, when
the wind ceased, he was called wind-forbidder (xuXvtfavsfi^g).
And Heraclides, in his treatise on Diseases, says that he
dictated to Pausanias the statement which he made about the
dead woman. Now Pausanias, as both Aristippus and Satyrus
agree, was much attached to him ; and he dedicated to him
the works which he wrote on Natural Philosophy, in the
following terms : —
Hear, 0 Pausanias, son of wise Anchites.
He also wrote an epigram upon him : —
V
Grela, his native land, does boast the birth
Of wise Anchites' son, that great physician.
So fitly named Pausanias,* from his skill ;
A genuine son of ^sculapius,
Who has stopped many men whom fell disease
Marked for its own, from treading those dark paths
Which lead to Proserpine's infernal realms.
The case of the dead woman above mentioned, Heraclides
says, was something of this sort ; that he kept hor corpse for
thirty days dead, and yet free from corruption ; on which
account he has called himself a physician and a prophet,
taking it also from these verses : —
* From wavw, to cause to cease, itvUXf sorrow.
EMFEOOCLES. 863
Frienda who the mighty citadel inhabit.
Which crowns the golden waves of Acragas.
Votaries of noble actions, Hail to ye ;
I, an immortal God, no longer mortal,
Kow live among you well revered by all,
As is my due, crowned with holy fillets
And rosy garlands. And whene'er I come
To wealthy cities, then from men and women
Due honours meets me ; and crowds follow me,
Seeking the way which leads to gainful glory.
Some ask for oracles, and some entreat.
For remedies against all kinds of sickness.
VII. And he says that Agrigentum was a yery large city,
since it had eight hundred thousand inhabitants ; on which
account Empedocles, seeing the people immersed in luxury,
said, " The men of Agrigentum devote themselves wholly to
luxury as if they were to die to-morrow, but they furnish their
houses as if they were to live for ever."
VIII. It is said that Cleomenes, the rhapsodist, sung this
very poem, called the Purifications, at Olympia ; at least this
is the account given by Phavorinus, in his Commentaries.
IX. And Ajistode says, that he was a most liberal man,
and far removed from anything like a domineering spirit ; since
he constantly refused the sovereign power when it was offered
to him, as Xanthus assures us in his account of him, showing
plainly that he preferred a simple style of living. And Timaeus
tells the same story, giving at the same time the reason why
he was so very popular. For he says that when on one occa-
sion, he was invited to a banquet by one of the magistrates,
the wine was carried about, but the supper was not served up.
And as every one else kept silence, he, disapproving of what
he saw, bade the servants bring in the supper ; but the person
who had invited him said that he was waiting for the secretary
of the council. And when he. came he was appointed master
of the feast, at the instigation of the giver of it, and then he
gave a plain intimation of his tyrannical inclinations, for he
ordered all the guests to drink, and those who did not drink
were to have the wine poured over their heads. Empedocles
said nothing at the moment, but the next day he summoned
them before the court, and procured the execution of both the
entertainer and the master of the feast.
And this was the beginning of his political career. And at
another time, when Acron, the physician, asked of the council
364 LIVES OF EKINEKT PHILOSOPHEB&
a place where he might erect a monument to his father, on
account of his eminence as a physician, Empedocles canie
forward and opposed any such grant, adducing many argiu
ments on the ground of equality, and also putting the following
question : — " And what elegy shall we inscribe upon it ?
Shall we say :-^
*AKpov Irirpbv 'Acpuiv' 'Axpavavrivov irarphQ dspov
KpvTTTti KptifAvog uKpoQ vaTp^o^ dgpordrtiQ*
But some give the second line thus : —
'Ajcporarijc KOpv^^c rvftfioQ acpoc Kartxu*
And others assert that it is the composition of Simonides.
But afterwards Empedocles abolished the assen^biy of a
thousand, and established a coimcil in which the magistrates
were to hold office for three years, on such a footing that it
should consist not only of rich men, but of those who were
favourers of the interests of the people. Timsdus, however,
in his first and second book (for he often mentions him), says
that he appeared to entertain opinions adverse to a republic.
And, as far as his poetry goes, any one may see that he was
arrogant and self-satisfied. Accordingly, he says : —
Hail to ye,
I, an immortal God, no longer mortal,
Kow live among you :
And so on.
But when he went to the Olympic games he was considered
a worthy object of general attention ; so that there was no
mention made of any one else in comparison of Empedocles.
X. Afterwards, indeed, when Agrigentum was settled, the
descendants of his enemies opposed his returft; on which
account he retired to Peloponnesus, where he died. And
Timon has not let even Empedocles escape, but satirises him
in this style, saying : —
And then Empedocles, the honeyed speaker ^
Of soft forensic speeches ; he did take
As many offices as he was able,
Creating magistrates who wanted helpers.
* It is impossible to give the force of this epigram in any other
language. It is a pun on *Acp<tfr, 'Aicpdyae, and djcpo£. The last won}
\\
BMPBBOOLES. . 865
;ut there are two accounts of the manner of his death.
11, For Heraclides, relating the story about the dead woman,
f Empedocles got great glory from sending away a dead
man restored to life, says that he celebrated a sacrifice in
5 field of Pisianax, and that some of his fdends were inyited,
long whom was Fausanias. And then, after the banquet,
w^ey lay down, some going a little way off, and some lying under
the trees close by in the field, and some whereyer they
happened to choose. But Empedocles himself remained in
the place where he had been sitting. But when day broke,
and they arose, he alone was not found. And when he was
sought for, and. the servants were examined and said that they
did not know, one of them .said, that at midnight he had heard
a loud voice calling Empedocles ; and that then he himself
rose up and saw a great light from heaven, but nothing else.
And as they were ell amazed at what had taken place, Fau-
sanias descended and sent some people to look for him ; but
afterwards he was commanded not to busy himself about the
matter, as he was informed that what had happened was de-
serving of thankfulness, and that they behoved to sacrifice to
Empedocles as to one who had become a God.
Hermippus says also, that a woman of the name of Fanthea,
a native of Agrigentum, who, had been given over by the physi-
cians, was cured by him, and that it was on this account iJiat
he celebrated a sacrifice ; and that the guests invited were about
eighty in number. But Hippobotus says that he rose up and
went away as if he were going to mount ^tna ; and that when
he arrived at the crater of fire he leaped in, and disappeared,
vdshing to establish a belief that he had become a God. But
afterwards the truth was detected by one of his slippers having
been dropped. For he used to wear slippers with brazen soles.
Fausanias, however, contradicts this statement.*
meaning not only hiffh, lofty, but also eminent, very tkQfvJL The plain
EngliBh would Im : — ** The lofty height of a most eminent country con-
eeals Acron, a skilful physician of Acragas, the son of a skilful father."
The variation would be : — ** A high tomb on a very high summit,
ooncealfl," &c.
* This story is mentioned by Horace : —
Siculique poetse,
Narrabo intoritum ; deus immortalis haberi,
Dum cupit'Empedocles ardentom frigidus ^tnam,
Insiluit A. P. 466.
866 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHEBS.
But Diodorus, of Epliesus, writing about Anaximander, says
that Empedocles imitated him ; indulging in a tragic sort of
pride, and wearing magnificent apparel And when a pestilence
attacked the people of Selinus, by reason of the bad smells
arising from the adjacent river, so that the men died and the
women bore dead children, Empedocles contrived a plan, and
brought into the same channel two other rivers at his own
expense ; and so, by mixing their waters with that of the other
river, he sweetened the stream. And as the pestilence was
removed in this way, when the people of Selinus were on one
occasion holding a festival on the bank of the river, Empedo-
cles appeared among them ; and they rising up, offered him
adoration, and prayed to him as to a God. And he, wishing
to confirm this idea which they had adopted of him, leaped
into the fire.
But Timaeus contradicts all these stories ; saying expressly,
that he departed into Peloponnesus, and never returned at
all, on which account the manner of his death is uncertain.
And he especially denies the tale of Heraclides in his fourth
book ; for he says that Pisianax was a Syracusan, and had no
field in the district of Agrigentum ; but that Pausanias erected
a monument in honour of his friend, since such a report had
got about concerning him ; and, as he was a rich man, made it
a statue and little chapel, as one might erect to a God. *' How
then," adds Timsus, '' could he have leaped into a crater, of
which, though they were in the neighbourhood, he had never
made any mention ? He died then in Peloponnesus ; and
there is nothing extraordinary in there being no tomb of his
to be seen ; for there are many other men who have no tomb
visible." These are the words of Timseus ; and he adds
further, " But Heraclides is altogether a man fond of strange
stories, and one who would assert that a man had fallen from
the moon."
Hippobotus says, that there was a clothed statue of Empe
docles which lay formerly in Agrigentum, but which was
afterwards placed in front of the Senate House of the Eomans
divested of its clothing, as the Eomans had carried it off and
erected it there. And there are traces of some inscriptious
or reliefs still discernible on it.
Neanthes, of Gyzicus, who also wrote about the Pythago-
reans, says, that when Meton was dead, the seeds of tyrannical
EMPEDOCLES. 867
power began to appear ; and that then Empedocles persnaded
the Agrigentines to desist from their factious disputes, and to
establish political equality. And besides, as there were many
of the female citizens destitute of dowry, he portioned them
out of his own private fortune. And relying on these actions
of his, he assumed a purple robe and wore a golden circlet on
his hand, as Phavorinus relates in the £urst book of his Com-
mentaries. He also wore slippers with brazen soles, and a
Delphian garland. His hair was let grow very long, and he
had boys to follow him ; and he himself always preserved a
solemn countenance, and a uniformly grave deportment. And
he marched about in such style, that he seemed to all the
citizens, who met him and who admired his deportment, to
exhibit a sort of likeness to kingly power. And afterwards, it
happened that as on the occasion of some festival he was going
in a chariot to Messene, he was upset and broke, his thigh ;
and he was taken ill in consequence, and so died, at the age
of seventy-seven. And his tomb is in Megara.
But as to his age, Aristotle differs from this account of
Neanthes ; for he asserts that he died at sixty years of age ;
others again say, that he was a hundred and nine when he
died. He flourished about the eighty-fourth olympiad. Deme-
trius, of Trsezen, in his book against the Sophists, reports that^
as the lines of Homer say :-?—
He now, self-murdered, from a beam depends.
And his mad soul to blackest hell descends.*
But in the letter of Telauges, which has been mentioned before,
it is said that he slipped down through old age, and fell into
the sea, and so died.
And this is enough to say about his death.
^ There is also a jesting epigram of ours upon him, in our
I collection of Poems in all Metres, which runs thus : —
Ton too, Empedocles, essayed to purge
Your body in the rapid flamei, and drank
The liquid fire from the restless crater ;
' I say not that you threw yourself at once
i Into the stream of Etna's fiery flood.
i But seeking to conceal yourself you fell,
. And so you met with unintended death.
♦ This ia slightly parodied from Homer. ^Od. xi 278. Pope's
Yersioxi, 337.
J
308 LIVES OF EMINEKT PHILOSOPHEBS.
And another :^-
'Tif said the wise Empedocles did £edl
Out of his chariot, and so broka his thigh :
But if he leapt into the flames of ^tna.
How could hu tomb be shown in Kegara I
XII. The following were some of his doctrines* He used
to assert that there were four elements, fire, water, earth, and
air. And that that is friendship by which they are united,
and discord by which they are separated. .And he speaks thus
on this subject :«-
Bright Jore^ Ufe-giying Juno, Huto dark,
And Nestis, who fills mortal eyes with tears.
Meaning by Jove fire, by Juno the earth, by Pluto the air,
and by Nestis water. And these things, says he, never cease
alternating with one another ; inasmuch as this arrangement is
perpetual. • Accordingly, he says subsequently : —
Sometimes in friendship bound they coalesce,
Sometimes they're parted by fell discord's hate.
And he asserts that the sun is a vast ass^nblage of fire, and
that it is larger than the moon. And the moon is disk-shaped ;
and that the heaven itself is like crystal ; and that the soul
inhabits every kind of form of animals and plants. Accord-
ingly, he thus expresses himself.
For once I was a boy, and once a girL
A bush, a bird, a fifuii who swims the se%
XIII. His writings on Natural Philosophy and his Purifi-
cations extend to five thousand verses ; and his Medical
Poem to six hundred ; and his Tragedies we have spoken of
previously.
LIFE OF EPICHARMUS.
I. Epichabmus was a native of Cos, the son of Helothales ;
he also was a pupil of Pythagoras. When he was three months
old he was brought to Megara, in Sicily, and from thence he
came to Syr£icuse, as he himself tells us in his writings. And
on his statue there is the following inscription.
ABCHTTAS. 369
•
Ab the bright sun excels the other stars,
As the sea for exceeds the river streams :
So does sage Epicharmus men surpass.
Whom hospitable Syracuse has crowned.
II. He has left behind him Commentaries in which he
treats of natural phUosophj, and deliyers apophthegms, and
discusses medicine. He has also added brief notes to many
of his commentaries, in which he declares plainly that he is
the author of the works.
III. He died at the age of ninety years.
LIFE OF ARCHYTAS.
I. Arohytas was a native of Tarentum, and the son of
Innesagoras ; or, as Aristoxenus relates, bf HistisBus.
II. He also was a Pythagorean ; and he it was who saved
Plato's life by means of a letter, when he was in danger of
teing put to death by Dionysius.
III. He was a man held in yery general esteem on account
of his universal virtue; and he was seven times appointed
general of his countiymen, when no one else had ever held
the office for more than one year, as the law forbade it to be
held for a longer period.
IV . Plato wrote his letters to him ; as he had begun the
correspondence by writing himself to Plato, which he did in
the following manner :— '
ABOHITAS TO PLATO, OBEETING.
" I am very glad that you have recovered from your delicate
state of health ; for you yourself have sent me word of your
recovery, and Lamiscus gives the same account. I have been
much occupied with some commentaries, and have been among
the Lucanians, and have met with the descendants of Orellus.
I have now in my possession, and I send to you the treatises
on Law, and Kingly Power, and Piety, and the Creation of
the Universe. As for the rest, I have not been able to find
them, bat whenever I do find any, I will send them to you."
B B
370 LIVES OF EiayENT PHILOSOPUEItS.
Thus wrote Archytas. And Plato sent him an answer in
the following terms : —
PLATO TO ABOHTTAS, GREETING.
" I was exceedingly glad to receive the Commentaries which
came from you, and I have admired their author in the greatest
possible degree ; and he seems to us to be a man worthy of his
ancient ancestors. For they are said to have been originally
natives of Myra ; and to have been among the Trojans, whom
Laomedon took with him, gallant men, as the story handed
down by tradition attests. As for my Commentaries which
you ask me for, they are not yet completed, but, such as they
are I send them to you. And on the propriety of taking care
of such things we are both agreed, so that I have no need to
impress anything on you on tibat head. Farewell.*'
These then are the letters which these philososophers wrote
to one another.
y. There were four people of the name of Archytas. The
first, this man of whom we are speaking. The second was a
Mytilenean, a musician. The third wrote a treatise on Agri-
culture. The fourth was an epigrammatic poet. Some writers
also make mention of a fifth, who was an architect ; and there
is a book on mechanics extant which is attributed to him ;
which begins in this way : —
" This is what I heaid from Teucer, the Carthaginian."
And concerning the musician, the following story is told :
That once he was reproached for not making himself heard,
and he replied, "My organ contends on my behalf, and
speaks."
YI. Aristoxenus says, that this Pythagorean was never
once defeated while acting as ^eneraL But that as he was
attacked by envy, he once gave up his command, and his army
was immediately taken prisoner.
VII. He was the first person who applied mathematical
principles to mechanics, and reduced them to a system ; and
the firat also who gave a methodical impulse to descriptive
geometry in seeking, in the sections of a demicylinder for a
proportional mean, which should enable him to find the double
of a given cube. He was also the first person who ever gave
the geometrical measure of a cube, as Plato mentions in his
Republic.
HiPPiJsns. 371
LIFE OF ALCM^ON.
I. Alcm^on was a citizen of Crotona ; he also was a pupil
of Pythagoras. And the chief part of his writings are on
medical subjects ; but he also at times discusses points of
natural philosophy, and asserts that the greater part of human
afiSurs have two sides. He appears to have been the first
person who wrote a treatise on Natural Philosophy, as Phavo-
rinus affirms, in his Universal History ; and he used to argue
that the moon had the same nature for ever which she had at
that moment. *
II. He was the son of Pirithus, as he himself states at the
beginning of his treatise, where he says, ** Alcmseon, of , Cro-
tona, the son of Pirithus, says this to Brontinus, and Leon,
and Bathyllus. About things invisible, and things mortal,
the Gods alone have a certain knowledge ; but men may form
conjectures. . . .*' And so on.
He used also to say that the soul was immortal, and that
it was in a state of perpetual motion in the same way as the
sun.
LIFE OF HIPPASUS.
I. HiPPASus was a citizen of Metapontum, and a pupil of
Pythagoras.
IL He used to say that the time of the changes of the
world was definite, and that the universe also was finite, and
in a state of perpetual motion.
III. Demetrius, in his treatise on People of the same Name,
says that he left no writings behind him.
IV. There were two people of the name of Hippasus ; this
man, and another who wrote an account of the Constitution of
the Lacedsemonians, in five books. And he was himself a
Lacedaemonian.
BBS
372 LIVES OF EMINBNT PHILOSOPHEB&
LIFE OF PHILOLAUS.
I. Philolaus was a native of Crotona, and a pupil of
Pythagoras, it was from him that Plato wrote to Dion to take,
care and purchase the hooks of Pythagoras.
II. And he died under suspicion of having designed to
seize on the tyranny; and we have written an epigram on
him:*-
I nj that all men oug^t above all things
To ffoard against Buspicion. For, thouglLuinoceni^
StiU if you are Buapected, vcoi're unfortunate.
And thus his native city of Crotona
Slew Philolaus ; for the jealous citizens
Thought that his house betrayed a tyrantfs purpose.
III. His thepry was, that eveiything was produced by
harmony and necessity. And he was the first person who
affirmed that the earth moved in a circle; though some
attribute the assertion of this principle to Icetas of Syracuse.
IV. He wrote one book, which Hermippus reports, on the
authority of some unknown writer, that Plato the philosopher
purchased when he was in Sicily (having come thither to the
court of Dionysius), of the relations of Philolaus, for forty
Alexandrian miu» of silver ; and that 'from this book he
copied his TimsBus. But others say that Plato received it as a
present, after having obtained his liberty for a young man,
one of the disciples of Philolaus, who had been arrested
by Dionysius. Demetrius, in his treatise on people of the
same name, says that he was the first of the Pythagoreans
who wrote a treatise on Natural Philosophy ; and it begins
thus :—
V But nature in the world has been composed of bodies
infinite and finite, and so is the whole world and all that is
in it."
LIFE OF EUDOXUS.
I. EuDoxus was the son of ^schines, and a native of
Cnidos. He was an astronomer, a geometrician, a physician,
BUDOXUS. 373
and a lawgiver. In geometry he was a pupil of Arcliytafl,
and in medicine of Philistion, the Sicilian, as Callimachus
relates in his Tablets ; and Sotion, in his Saccessions, asserts
that he was likewise a pupil of Plato ; for that, when he was
twenty-three years of age, and in very narrow circumstances,
he came to Athens with Theomedon the physician, by whom
he was chiefly supported, being attracted by the reputation of
the Socratic school. Some say that his attachment to Theo-
medon was cemented by nearer ties. And when he had arriyed
at' Piraeus, he went up to the city every day, and when he had
heard the Sophists lecture he returned. And having spent two
months there, he returned home again ; and being again aided
by the contributions of his friends, he set sail for Egypt, with
Chrysippus the physician, bearing letters of introduction from
Agesilaus to Nectanabis, and that he reeommended him to the
priests.
IL And having remained there a year and four months,
he shaved his eyebrows after the manner of the Egyptian
priests, and composed, as it is said, the treatise called the
Octacteris. From thence he went to Oyzicus, and to the
Propontis, in both of which places he lived as a Sophist ;
he also went to the court of Mansolus. And then, in this
manner, he returned again to Athens, having a great many
disciples with him, for the sake, as some say, of annoying
Plato, because he had originally discarded him from his
school. Some say, that when Plato gave an entertainment on
one occasion, Eudoxus, as the guests were very numerous,
introduced the fiELshion of sitting in a semicircle.
Nichomachus, the son of Aristotle, affirms that he used to
say, that pleasure was the good.
III. He was received in his own country with great
honours, as the decree that was passed respecting him shows.
He was also accounted very illustrious among the Greeks,
having given laws to his own fellow citizens, as Hermippus
tells us in the fourth book of his account of the Seven Wise
Men; and having also written treatises on Astronomy and
Geometry, and several other considerable works.
He had three daughters, Actis, Philtis, and Delphis. And
Eratosthenes asserts, in his books addressed to Baton, that he
also composed dialogues entitled Dialogues of Dogs ; others
say that these were written by some Egyptians, in their own
874 UYES OF EICINENT PHILOSOPHBBS.
language, and that Eudoxus translated them, and published
them in Greece. One of his pupils was Chrjsippus, of
Onidos, son of Erineus, who learnt of him all that he knew
about the Gods, and the world, and the heavenly bodies ;
and who learnt medicine from Philistion the Sicilian. He
also left some very admirable Reminiscences.
IV. He had a son of the name of Aristagoras, who was the
teacher of Chiysippus, the son of Aethlius; he was the author
of a work on Bemedies for the Eyes, as speculations on
natural philosophy had come very much under his notice.
v. There were three people of the name of Eudoxus. The
first, this man of whom we are speaking ; the second, a
Ehodian, who wrote histories ; the third, a Sicilist, a son of
Agathocles, a comic poet, who gained three victories at the
Dionysia in the city, and five at the Lenasa,* as Apollodorus
tells us in his Chronicles. We also find another, who was a phy-
sician of Cnidos, who is mentioned by this Eudoxus, in his
Circuit of the World, where he says that he used to warn peo-
ple to keep constantly exercising dieir limbs in every kind of
exercise, and their senses too.
YI. The same author says, that the Cnidean Eudoxus
flourished about the hundred and third olympiad ; and that he
was the inventor of the theory of crooked lines. And he died in
his fifty-third year. But when he was in Egypt with Conu-
phis, of Heliopolis, Apis licked his garment; and so the
priests said that he would be short-lived, but very illustrious,
•as it is reported by Phavorinus in his Commentaries. And
we have written an epigram on him, that runs thus : —
*Tia said, that while at Memphis wise Eudoxus
Learnt his own fate from th' holy fair-homed bull ;
He said indeed no word, bulls do ndt speak ;
Nor had kind nature e'er calf Api&gifted
With an articulately speaking mouth.
But standing on one side He Uck'd his cloak,
S^howing by this most plainly — in brief time
Tou shall put off your life. So death came soon.
When he had just seen three and fifty times
The Pleiads rise to warn the mariners.
* There were three festivals of Bacchus at Athens at which dra-
matic contests took place, the Aiovixria Kar* aypovg, or, " in the fields ;**
the Arjvaia or rd »v Aifivaig, or "the marshes," a part of the city
near the Acropolis, in which was situated the A^vautv, an enclosure
BUDOXUS. 375
And instead of Eudoxus, they used to call him Endoxus,*
on account of the brilliancy of his reputation. And since we
have gone through the illustrious Pythagoreans, we must now
speak of the Promiscuous philosophers, as they call them.
And we will first of all speak of Heraclitus,
dedicated to Bacchus ; and the rStlv atrrtt, " in the city," or Ta fisyaXa
Aioviftna. The comic contests usually took place at the second or
linaean festivals. Sometimes also at the Qreat Dionysia. >
+ ivdo^oi:, glorious.
» \
87ft
BOOK IX.
LIFE OF HERACLITUS.
I. Hebaglitus was the son of Blyson, or, as some say, of
Heraceon, and a citizen of Ephesus. He flourished about the
sixty-ninth olympiad.
II. He was above all men of a lofty and arrogant spirit, as
is plain from his writings, in which he says, "Abundant
learning does not form the mind ; for if it did, it would have
instructed Hesiod, and Pythagoras, and likewise Xenopbanes,
and HecatsBus. For the only piece of real wisdom is to
kQow that idea, which by itself will govern everything on
every occasion. He used to say, too, that Homer deserved to
be expelled from the games and beatep, and Archilochus
likewise. He used also to say, " It is more necessary to extin-
guish insolence, than to put out a fire.*' Another of his say-
ings was, ** The people ought to fight for the law, as for their
city."* He also attacks the Ephesians for having banished his
companion Hermodorus, when he says, ** The Ephesians
deserve to have all their youth put to death, and all those who
are younger still banished from their city, inasmuch as they
have banished Hermodorus, the best man among them, saying,
" Let no one of us be pre-eminently good ; and if there be
any sifch person, let him go to anoUier city and another
people."
And when he was requested to make laws for them, he
refused, because the city was already immersed in a thon)uglily
bad constitution. And having retired to the temple of
Diana with his children, he began to play at dice ; and when
all the Ephesians flocked round him, he said, " You wretches,
what are you wondering at ? is it not better to do this, than
to meddle with public affairs in your company?"
III. And at last, becoming a complete misanthrope, he used
to live, spending his time in walking about the mountains ;
feeding on grasses and plants, and in consequence of these
HERACLITUEL 877
habits, he ins attacked by the dropsy, and so then he retained
to the city, and asked the physicians, in a riddle, whether they
were able to produce a drought after wet weather. And as
they did not understand him, he shut himself up in a stable
for oxen, and covered himself with cow-dung, hoping to cause
the wet to evaporate from him, by the warmth diat this pro-
duced. And as he did himself no go good in this way, he
died, having lived seventy years ; and we have written an
epigram upon him which runs thus :—
Tve often wondered mnch at Heraclitus,
Thftt he should ohoso to live so miserably.
And die by such a miserable fate.
For fell disease did master all his body,
With water quenching all the light of his eyes,
And bringing darkness o'er his mind and body.
But Hermippus states, that what he asked the physicians
was this, whether any one could draw o£f the water by de-
pressing his intestines ? and when they answered that they
could not, he placed himself in the sun, and ordered his
servants to plaster him over with cow-dung; and being
stretched out in that way, on the second day he died, and was
buried in the market-place. But Neanthes, of Cyzicus says^
that as he could not tear off the cow-dung, he remained there,
and on account of the alteration in his appearance, he was not
discovered, and so was devoured by the dogs.
lY. And he was a wonderful person, from his boyhood,
since, while he was young, he used to say that he knew
nothing but when he had grown up, he then used to affirm
that he knew everything. And he was no one's pupil, but he
used to say, that he himself had investigated evexy thing, and
had learned everything of himself. But Sotion relates, that
some people affirmed that he had been a pupil of Xenophanes.
And that Ariston, stated in his account of Heraclitus, that
he was cured of the dropsy, and died of some other disease.
And Hippobotus gives the same account.
y . There is a book of his extant, which is about nature
generally, and it is divided into three discourses ; one on the
Universe ; one on Politics ; and one on Theology. And he
deposited this book in the temple of Diana, as some authors
report, having written it intentionally in an obscure style, in
order that only those who were able men might comprehend
378 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
it, and that it might not be exposed to ridicule at the hands
of the common people. Timon attacks this man also, say-
ing :—
Among them came that cuckoo Heraditus
The enigmatical obscure reviler
Of all the common people.
Theophiastus asserts, that it was out of melancholy that he
left some of his works half finished, and wrote several, in
completely different styles ; and Antisthenes, in his Succes-
sions, adduces as a proof of his lofty spirit, the fact, that he
yielded to his brother the title and privileges of royalty.*
And his book had so high a reputation, that a sect arose in
consequence of it, who were called after his own name,
Heracliteans.
VI. The following may be set down in a general manner as
his main principles: that everything is created from fire,
and is dissolved into fire; that everything happens accord-
ing to destiny, and that all existing things are harmonized,
and made to agree together by opposite tendencies ; and that
all things are full of souls and dasmones. He also discussed
all the passions which exist in the world, and used also to
contend that the sun was of that precise magnitude of which
he appears to be. One of his sayings too was, that no one, by
whatever road he might travel, could ever possibly find out
the boundaries of the soul, so deeply hidden are the prin-
ciples which regulate it. He used also to call opinion the
sacred disease ; and to say that eye -sight was often deceived.
Sometimes, in his. writings, he expresses himself with great
brilliancy and clearness ; so that even the most stupid man
may easily unde;rstand him, and receive an elevation of soul
from him. And his concisenesS|^ and the dignity of his style,
are incomparable.
In particulars, hjg tetP"fiS ^^^ of this kind. That fire is
an element, and that it is by the changes of ^e that all
things exist; being engendered sometimes by rarity, some-
times by density. But he explains nothing clearly. He also
says, that everything is produced byxiontrwety* and that
everything flows on like a river ; that the universe is finite,
• According to Strabo, the descendants of Androclus, the founder
of Ephesus (of which family Heraclitus came), bore the title of king,
and had certain prerogatives and privileges attached to the title.
HERACLITUS. 379
and that there is one world, and that that is produced from
fire, and that the whole world is in its turn again con-
sumed by fire at certain periods, and that all this happens
according to fate. That of the contraries, that which leads to
production is called war and contest, and that which leads to
the conflagration is called harmony and peace ; that change is
the road leading upward, and the road leading downward;
and that the whole world exists according to it.
For that fire, when densified becomes liquid, and becoming
concrete, becomes also water ; again, that the water when con-
crete is turned to earth, and that this is the road down; again,
that the earth itself becomes fused, from which water is pro-
duced, and from that everything else is produced ; and then
he refers almost everything to the -evaporation which takes
place from the sea; and this is the road which leads upwards.
Also, that there are evaporations, both from earth and sea,
some of which are bright and clear, and some are dark ;
and that the &re is increased by the dark ones, and the mois-
ture by the others. But what the space which surrounds us
is, he does not explain. He states, however, that there are
vessels in it, turned with their hollow part towards us; in
which all the bright evaporations are collected, and form
flames, which are the stars ; and tbat the brightest of these
flames, and the hottest, is the hght of the sun ; for that all
the other stars are farther off from the earth ; and that on
this account, they give less light and warmth ; and that the
moon is nearer the earth, but does not move through a pure
space; the sunj^n the other hand, is situated in a transparent
space, ah J" "one free from all admixture, preserving a well
proportioned distance from us, on which account it gives us
more light and more heat. And that the sun and moon are
eclipsed, when the before-mentioned vessels are turned up-
wards. And that the different phases of the moon take place
every .month, as its vessel keeps gradually turning round.
Moreover, that day and night, and months and years, and
rains and winds, and things of that kind, all exist according
to, and are caused by, the different evaporations.
For that the bright evaporation catching fire in the circle
of the sun causes day, and the predominance of the opposite
one causes night ; and again, from the bright one the heat is
increased so as to produce summer, and from the dark one
880 LIVES OF EMOnSNT PHILOBOPHEBS.
the cold gains strength and prodaces winter ; and he also
ezpLuns the causes of the other phenomena in a coirespond-
ing manner.
But with respect to the earth, he does not OKplain at all
of what chaiacterit is, nor does he do so in the case of the
vessels ; and these were his main doctrines.
YII. Now, what his opinion ahout Socrates was, and what
expressions he used when he met with a treatise of his which
Euripides brought him, according to the stoiy told by Ariston,
we have detailed in our account of Socrates. Seleucus, the
grammarian, however, says that a man of the name of Cro-
ton, in his Diver, relates that it was a person of the name of
Grates who first brought this book into Greece ; and that he
said that he wanted some Delian diver who would not be
drowned in it. And the book is described under several
titles ; some calling it the Muses, some a treatise on Nature ;
but Diodotus calls it—
A. well compacted helm to lead a man
Straight through the path of life.
Some call it a science of morals, the arrangement of the
changes ♦ of unity and of everything.
VIII. They say that when he was asked why he preserved
silence, he said, " That you may talk.**
IX. Darius was very desirous to enjoy his conversation; and
wrote thus to him :•—
KtNa DABIUS, THE SON OF HYSTASFES, ADDBESSES HEEAGLITUS,
OF EPHESUS, THE WISE MAN, OBKETINO HIM.
'' You have written a book on Natural Philosophy, difficult
to understand and difficult to explain. Accordingly, if in
some parts it is explained literally, it seems to disclose a very
important theory concerning the universal world, and all that
is contained in it, as they are placed in a state of most divine
motion. But commonly, the mind is kept in suspense, so
that those who have stndied your work the most, are not able
precisely to disentangle the exact meaning of your expressions.
Therefore, king Darius, the son of Hystaspes wishes to enjoy
the benefit. of hearing you discourse, and of receiving some
* There U probably some corruption in the text here.
OF
HEBAGLITUS. 381
Grecian instruction. Gome, therefore, quickly to my sight,
and to my royal palace ; for the Greeks, in general, do not
accord to wise men the distinction which they deserve, and
disregard the admirahle expositions delivered hy them, which
are, however, worthy of being seriously Hstened to and
•studied ; but with me you shall have every kind of distinc-
tion and honour, and you shall enjoy every day honourable
and worthy conversation, and your pupils* Ufe shall become
virtuous, in accordance with your precepts."
HEBAGLITUS, OF EFHESUS, TO KLSa DABIUS, THE SON
HYSTASPES, GBEETINa.
" All the men that exist in the world, are far removed from
truth and just dealings ; but they are full of evil foolishness,
which leads them to insatiable covetousness and vain-glorious
ambition. I, however, forgetting all their worthlessness, and
shunning satiety, and who wish to avoid all envy on the part
of my countrymen, and all appearance of arrogance, will never
come to Persia, since I am quite contented with a httle, and
live as best suits my own inclination."
X. This was the way in which the man behaved even to the
king. And Demetrius, in his treatise on People of the same
Name, says that he also despised the Athenians, among whom
he had a very high reputation. And that though he was him-
self despised by the Ephesians, he nevertheless preferred his
own home. Demetrius Phaleruus also mentions him in his
Defence of Socrates.
XI. There were many people who undertook to interpret
his book. For Antisthenes and Heraclides, Ponticus, and
Cleanthes, and Sphserus the Stoic ; and besides them Pau-
sanias, who was sumamed HeracUtistes, and Nicomedes, and
Dionysius, all did so. And of the grammarians, Diodotus
undertook the same task ; and he says that the subject of the
book is not natural philosophy, but politics ; and that all that
is said in it about natural philosophy, is only by way of illus-
tration. And Hieronymus tells us, that a man of the name of
ScythenuSy an iambic poet, attempted to render the book into
verse.
XII. There are many epigre^m^ ^extant which were written
upon him, and this is one of them : —
A
882 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHEBS.
I who lie here am Heraditiu, spare me
Te rude unlettered men : 'Twas not for you
That I did labour, but for wiser people.
One man may be to me a countless hosl^
Xnd an unnumbered multitude be no one;
And this I still say in the shades below.
And there is another expressed thus : —
Be not too hasty, skimming o'er the book
Of Heraclitus ; 'tis a difficult road,
For mist is there, and darkness hard to pierce.
But if you have a guide who knows his system,
, Then everything is clearer than the sun.
XIII. There were five people of the name of Heraclitus.
The first was this philosopher of ours. The second a lyric
poet, who wrote a panegyrical hymn on the Twelve Gods.
The third was an Elegiac poet, of Halicamassus ; on whom
Callimachus wrote the following epigram : —
I heard, O Heraclitus, of your death,
And the news filled ^y eyes with moumfld tears.
When I remembered all the happy hours
When we with talk beguiled the setting sun.
Tou now are dust ; but still the honeyed voice
Of your sweet converse doth and will survive ;
Nor can fell death, which all things else destroys,
Lay upon that his ruthless conquering grasp.
The fourth was a Lesbian, who wrot« a history of- Macedonia.
The fifth was a man who blended jest with earnest ; and who,
having been a harp-player, abandoned that profession for a
serio-comic style of writing.
LIFE OF XENOPHANES.
I. Xenophakes was the son of Dexius, or, as Apollodorus
says, of Orthomenes. He was a citizen of Colophon ; and is
praised by Timon. Accordingly, he says : —
Xenophanes, not much a slave to vanity.
The wise reprover of the tricks of Homer.
He, having been banished from his own country, lived at
Zande, in Sicily, and at Catana.
XBNOPHANES. 383
Grecian g to the statements made by some people,
aii(j ^,. one ; but, as others say, he was a pupil of
accov i; or, as another account again affirms, of
(li^ s, if we may believe Sotion, a contemporary
poems in hexameter and in elegiac verse ;
rote iambics against Hesiod and Homer,
) lings said in their poems about the Gods.
recite his own poems. It is said hkewise,
iigainst the opinions of Thales and Pythagoras,
^0 attacked Epimenides. He lived to an extreme
. says somewhere himself: —
-tcore and seven long years are fully passed,
tirst my doctrines spread abroad through Greece :
twixt that time and my first view of light
istres more must added be to them :
am right at all about my age,
.ung but eight years of a century.
trine was, that there were four elements of existing
id an infinite number of worlds, which were all
able. He thought that the clouds were produced by
^ir which was borne upwards from the sun, and which
»'m up into the circumambient space. That the essence
^yas of a spherical form, in no respect resembling man ;
0 universe could see, and that the universe could hear,
aid not breathe ; and that it was in all its parts intellect,
.visdom, and eternity. He was the first person who
ed that everything which is produced is perishable, and
.he soul is a spirit. He used also to say that the many
inferior to unity. Also, that we ought to associate with
uts either as little as possible, or else as pleasantly as
sible.
vVhen Empedocles said to him that the wise man was
discoverable, he replied, ** Very likely ; for it takes a wise
tdn to discover a wise man.*' And Sotion says, that he waa
ae first person who asserted that everything is incomprehen-
ible. But he is mistaken in this.
Xenophanes wrote a poem on the Founding of Colophon ;
and also, on the Colonisation of Elea, in Italy, consistinsr of
two thousand veiBes. And he flourished about
olympiad.
884 UVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHEBa
IV. Demetrius Phalereus, in his treatise on Old Age, and
PhensBtius the Stoic, in his essay on Cheerfulness, relate that
he buried his sons with his own hands, as Anaxagoras had also
done. And he seems to have been detested * by the Pythago-
reans, Parmeniscus, and.Orestades, as Phavorinus relates in
the first book of his Commentaries.
y. There was also another Xenophanes, a native of Lesbos,
and an iambic poet.
These are the Promiscuous or unattached philosophers.
LIFE OF PAKMENIDES.
I. Pabmenides, the son of Pyres, and a citizen of Velia,
was a pupil of Xenophanes. And Theophrastus, in his
Abridgment, says that he was also a pupil of Anaximander.
However, though he was a pupil of Xenophanes, he was not
afterwards a follower of his; but he attached himself to
Aminias, and Diochartes the Pythagorean, as Sotion relates,
which last was a poor but honourable and virtuous man. And
he it was whose follower he became, and after he was dead he
erected a shrine, or ripfov, in his honour. And so Parmenides,
who was of a noble family and possessed of considerable
wealth, was induced, not by Xenophanes but by Aminias, to
embrace the tranquil Hfe of a philosopher.
II. He was the first person who asserted that the earth was
of a spherical form ; and that it was situated in the centre of
the universe. He also taught that there were two elements,
fire and earth ; and that one of them occupies the place of the
maker, the other that of the matter. He also used to teach
that man was originally made out of clay ; and that they were
composed of two parts, the hot and the cold ; of which, in fact,
everything consists. Another of his doctrines was, that the
.mind and the soul were the same thing, as wo are informed
* There is great obscurity and uncertainty of the text here. The
reading translated is that of Huebner, vi^utpaffOat, Some read, ^rc*
wpwrQca, he seems to have abandoned the Pythagoreans. Others pro-
pose irerrpdxBai, The French translator renders, — He had for ^lemies
the Pythagoreans.
PARMENIDES. 385
by Theophrastus,' in his Natural Philosophy, when he enu-
merates tiie theories of nearly all the different philosophers.
He also used to say that philosophy was of a twofold
character; one kind resting on certain truth, the other on
opinion. On which account he says some wh eie :
And 'twill be needful for you well to know,
' The fearless heart of all-conyincing truth :
Also the opinions, though less sure, of men.
Which rest upon no certain evidence.
III. Parmenides too philosophizes in his poems ; as Hesiod
and Xenophanes, and Empedocles used to. And he used to
say that argument was the test of truth ; and that the sensa-
tions were not trustworthy witnesses. Accordingly, he says : —
Let not the common usages of men
r; Persuade your better taught experience,
To trust to men's unsafe deceit^ sight,
^ Or treacherous ears, or random speidong tongue :
^ Reason alone will prove the truth of facts.
1^ On which account Timon says of him : —
rJ'
flu'"
The vigorous mind of wise Parmenides,
Who classes all the errors of the thoughts
Under vain phantasies. •
Plato inscribed one of his dialogues with his name^-Parme-
nides, or an essay on Ideas. He flourished about the sixty-
ninth Olympiad. He appears to haye been the first person
who discovered that Hesperus and Lucifer were the same star,
as Phavorinus records, in the fifth book of his Commentaries.
Some, however, attribute this discovery to Pythagoras. And
Callimachus asserts that the poem in which this doctrine is
promulgated is not his work.
lY. He is said also to have given laws to his fellow-
citizens, as Speusippus records, in his acconnt of the Philoso-
phers. He was also the first en^ployer of the question called
the Achilles,* as Phavorinus assures us in his Universal
History.
V, There was also another Parmenides, an orator, who
"^ wrote a treatise on the art of Oratory.
^^ * See the account of Zeno the Cittisean.
c c
386 LIVES OF EMIXENT PHILOSOPHEBS.
LIFE OF MELISSUS.
I. Melissus was a Samian, and the son of Ithi^eses. He
was a pupil of Parmenides ; but he also had conversed with
Heraclitus, when he recommended him to the Ephesians, who
were unacquainted with him, as Hippocrates recommended
Democritus to the people of Abdera.
II. He was a man greatly occupied in political afbirs, and
held in great esteem among his fellow citizens ; on which
account he was elected admiral. And he was admired still
more on account of his private virtues.
III. His doctrine was, that the Universe was infinite, unsus-
ceptible of change, immoveable, and one, being always like
to itself, and complete ; and that there was no such thing
as real motion, but that there only appeared to be such. As
respecting the Gods, too, he denied that there was any occa-
sion to give a definition of them, for that there was no certain
knowledge of them.
IV. Apollodorus states that he flourished about the eighty-
fourth olympiad.
LIFE OF ZENO, THE ELEATIC.
I. Zeno was a native of Velia. Apollodorus, in his Chro-
nicles, says that he was by nature the son of Telentagoras,
but by adoption the son of Parmenides.
II. Timon speaks thus of him and Melissus : —
Great is the strength, invincible the might
Df Zeno, ekilled to argue on both sides
Of any question, ih* universal critic;
And of Melissus too. They rose superior
To prejudice in general ; only yielding
To very few.
And Zeno had been a pupil of Parmenides, and had been
on other accounts greatly attached to him.
III. He was a tall man, as Plato tells us in his Parmenides,
ZENO. 887
and the same writer, in his Phaedrus, calls him also the
Eleatic Falamedes.
IV. Aristotle, in his Sophist, says that he was the inventor
of dialectics, as Empedocles was of rhetoric. And he was a
man of the greatest nobleness of spirit, both in philosophy
and in politics. There are also many books extant, which are
attributed to him^ full of great learning and wisdom.
y. He, wishing to put an end to &e power of Nearches,
the tyrant (some, however, call the tyrant Diomedon), was
arrested, as we are informed by HeracUdes, in his abridgment
of Satyrus. And when he was examined, as to his accom-
plices, and as to the arms which he was taking to Lipara, he
named all the friends of the tyrant as his accomplices, wishing
to make him feel himself alone. And then, after ^e had
mentioned some names, he said that he wished to whisper
something privately to the tyrant ; and when he came near
him he bit him, and would not leave his hold till he was
stabbed. And the same thing happened to Aristogiton, the
tyrant slayer. But Demetrius, in his treatise on People of
the same Name, says that it was his nose that he bit off.
Moreover, Antisdienes, in his Successions, says that after
he had given him information against his friends, he was
asked by the tyrant if there was any one else. And he
replied, " Yes, you, the destruction of the city." And that he
also said to the bystanders, '* I marvel at your cowardice, if
you submit to be slaves to the tyrant out of fear of such pains
as I am now enduring.'* And at last he bit off his tongue
and spit it at him ; and the citizens immediately rushed for-
ward, and slew the tyrant with stones. And this is the
account that is given by almost every one.
But Hermippus says, that he was put into a mortar, and
pounded to death. And we ourselves have written the fol-
lowing epigram on him :—
Your noble wish, 0 Zeno, was to elay
A orael tyrant, freeing Elea
From the harsh bonds of shameful slavery,
But you were disappointed ; for the tyrant
Pounded you in a mortar. I say wrong.
He only crushed your body, and not you.
VI. And Zenp was an excellent man in other respects :
and he was also a despiser of great men in an equal degree
0 0 2
888 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
a
mth Heraclitus ; for he, too, preferred the town which "was
formerly called Hjele, and afterwards Elea, being a colonj of
the PhocflBans, and his own native place, a poor city possessed
of no other importance than the knowledge of how to raise
virtuous citizens, to the pride of the Athenians ; so that he
did not often visit them, but spent his life at home.
VII. He, too, was the first man who asked the question
called Achilles,* though Phavorinus attributes its first use to
Parmenides, and several others.
VIII. His chief doctrines were, that there were several
worlds, and that there was no vacuum ; that the nature of
all things consisted of hot and cold, and dry and moist,
these elements interchanging their substances with one
another ; that man was made out of the earth, and that his
soul was a mixture of the before-named elements in. such a
way that no one of them predominated.
IX. They say that when he was reproached, he was indig-
nant ; and that when some one blamed him, be replied, " If
when I am reproached, I am not angered, then I shall not be
pleased when I am praised.'*
X. We have already said in our account of the Gittisean,
that there were eight Zenos ; but this one flourished about
the seventy-ninth olympiad.
LIFE OF LEUCIPPUS.
I. Leucippus was a native of Velia, but, as some say, of
Abdera ; and, as others report, of Melos.
II. He was a pupil of Zeno. And his principal doctrines
were, that all things were infinite, and were interchanged with
one another ; and that the universe was a vacuum, and full of
bodies ; also that the worlds were produced by bodies falling
into the vacuum, and becoming entangled with one another ;
and that the nature of the stars originated in motion, accord-
ing to their increase ; also, that the sun is borne round iu a
* See the life of Parmenidea.
LEUCiPPUS. 389
greater circle around the moon ; that the earth is carried on
revolving round the centre ; and that its figure resembles a
drum ; he was the first philosopher who spoke of atoms as
principles.
III. These are his doctrines m general; m particular de-
tail, they are as follow : he says that the universe is infinite,
as I have already mentioned; that of it, one part is a
plenum, and the other a vacuum. He also says that the
elements, and the worlds which are derived from them, are
infinite, and are dissolved again into them; and that the
worlds are produced in this manner : That many bodies, of
various kinds and shapes, are borne by amputation from the
infinite, into a vast vacuum ; and then, they being collected
together, produce one vortex ; according to which they, dash-
ing against one another, and whirling about in every direction,
are separated in such a way that like attaches itself to like.
But as they are all of equal weight, when by reason of
their number they are no longer able to whirl about, the thin
ones depart into the outer vacuum, as if they bounded through,
and the others remain behind, and becoming entangled with
one another, run together, and produce a sort of spherical
shaped figure.
This subsists as a kind of membrane ; containing within
itself bodies of every kind ; and as these are whirled about
so as to revolve according to the resistence of the centre, the
circumambient membrane becomes thin, since bodies are without
ceasing, uniting according to the impulse given by the vortex;
and in this way the earth is produced, since these bodies which
have once been brought to the centre remain there.
On the other side, there is produced another enveloping
membrane, which fticreases incessantly by the accretion of
exterior bodies ; and which, as it is itself animated by a cir-
cular movement, dr^s with it, and adds to itself, everything it
meets with ; some of these bodies thus enveloped re-unite
again and form compounds, which are at first moist and
clayey, but soon becoming dry, and being drawn on in the
universal movement of the circular vortex, they catch fire,
and constitute the substance of the stars. Tlie orbit of the
sun is the most distant one ; that of the moon is the nearest
to the earth; and between the two are the orbits of the other
stars.
300 LIVES OF EMINENT FHILOSOPHEBS.
All the stars are set on fire by the rapidity of their own
motion ; and the sun is set on fire by the stars ; the moon has
only a slight quantity of fire; the sun and the moon are eclipsed
in ... * in consequence of the inclination of the earth
towards the south. In the north it always snows, and those
districts are cold, and are often frozen.
The sun is eclipsed but seldom ; but the moon frequently,
because her orbits are unequal.
Leucippus admits also, that the production of worlds, their
increase, their diminution, and their destruction, depend on a
certain necessity, the character of which he does not precisely
explain.
LIFE OF DEMOCRITUS.
I. Democbitdb was the son of Hegesistratus, but as some
say, of Athenocrites, and, according to other accounts, of
Damasippus. He was a native of Abdera, or, as it is stated
by some authors, a citizen of Miletus.
II. He was a pupil of some of the Magi and Chaldseans,
whom XenLes had left with his father as teachers, when he
had been hospitably received by him, as Herodotus informs us ;t
and £rom these men he, while still a boy, learned the principles
Off astronomy and theology. Afterwards, his father entrusted
him to Leucippus, and to Anaxagoras, as some authors assert,
who was forty years older than he. And Phavorinus, in his
Universal History, says that Democritus said of Anaxagoras,
that his opinions about the sun and moon were not his own,
but were old theories, and that he had stolen them. And
that he used also to pull to pieces his assertions about the
composition of the world, and about mind, as he was hostile
to him, because he had declined to admit him as a pupil. How
then can he have been a pupil of his, as some assert ? And
* There is evidently ft considerable gap in the text here,
f As there is no such passage in Herodotus, Yalchenser conjectures
that we ought here to read Metrodorus.
DEMOCRITUS. 891
Demetrius in his treatise on People of the same Name, and
Antisthenes in his Successions, hoth afiGirm that he travelled
to Egypt to see the priests there, and to learn mathematics of
them ; and that he proceeded further to the Chaldeans, and
penetrated into Persia, and went as far as the Persian Gulf.
Some also say that he made acquaintance with the Gymnoso-
phists in India, and that he went to iBthiopia.
III. He was one of three hrothers who divided their patri-
mony among them ; and the most common story is, that he
took the smaller portion, as it was in money, because he
required money for the purpose of travelling; though hi^
brothers suspected him of entertaining some treacherous
design. And Demetrius says, that his share amounted to
more than a hundred talents, and that he spent the whole
of it
lY. He also says, that he was so industrious a man, that
he cut off for himseK a small portion of the garden which sur-
rounded his house, in which there was a small cottage, and shut
himself up in it. And on one occasion, when his father
brought him an ox to sacrifice, and fastened it there, he for a
long time did not discover it, until his father having roused
him, on the pretext of the sacrifice, told him what he had done
with the ox.
V. He further asserts, that it is well known that he went
to Athens, and as he despised glory, he did not desire to be
known ; and that he became acquainted with Socrates, with-
out Socrates knowing who he was. " For I came," says he,
*• to Athens, and no one knew me.*' " If," says Thrasylus,
" the Rivals, is really the work of Plato, then Democritus
must be the anonymous interlocutor, who is introduced in that
dialogue, besides ^nopides and Anaxagoras, the one I mean
who, in the conversation with Socrates, is arguing about phi-
losophy, and whom the philosopher tells, that a philosopher
resembles a conqueror in the Pentathlum." And he was
veritably a master of five branches of philosophy. For he
was thoroughly acquainted with physics, and ethics, and
mathematics, and the whole encyclic system, and indeed he
was thoroughly experienced and. skilful in every kind of art.
He it was who was the author of the saying, " Speech is the
shadow of action." But Demetrius Phalereus, in his Defence
of Socrates, affirms that he never came to Athens at all. And
892 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
that is a still stranger circumstance than any, if he despised
so important a city, not wishing to derive glory from the
place in which he was, but preferring rather Himself to invest
the place with glory.
VI. And it is evident from his writings, what sort of man
he was. " He seems," says Thrasylus, " to have been also an
admirer of the Pythagoreans." And he mentions Pythagoras
himself, speaking of him with admiration, in the treatise which
is inscribed with his name. And he appears to have derived
all his doctrines from him to such a degree, that one would
liave thought that he had been his pupil, if the difference of
time did not prevent it At all events, Glaucus, of *Rhegium,
who was a contemporary of his, affirms that he was a pupil of
some of the Pythagorean school.
And Apollodorus, of Cyzicus, says that he was intimate
with Philolaiis ; " He used to practise himself," says Antis-
thenes, " in testing perceptions in various manners ; some-
times retiring into solitary places, and spending his time even
among tombs."
VJI. And he further adds, that when he returned from his
travels, he lived in a most humble manner ; like a man who
had spent all his property, and that on account of his poverty,
he was supported by his brother Damasus. But when he had
foretold some future event, which happened as he had pre-
dicted, and had in consequence become famous, he was for all
the rest of his life thought worthy of almost divine honours
by the generality of people. And as there was a law, that a
man who had squandered the whole of his patrimony, should
not be allowed funeral rites in his country, Antisthenes says,
that he, being aware of this law, and riot wishing to be ex-
posed to the calumnies of those who envied him, and would be
glad to accuse him, recited to the people his work called the
Great World," which is far superior to all his other writings,
and that as a reward for it he was presented with five hun-
dred talents ; and not only that, but he also had some brazen
statues erected in his honour. And when he died, he was
buried at the public expense ; after having attained the age of
more than a hundred years. But Demetrius says, that it was
his relations who read the Great World, and that they
were presented with a hundred talents only ; and Hippobotus
coincides in this statement.
DBMOCRTTUS. 893
VIIT. And Aristoxenus, in his Historic Commentaries, says
that Plato wished to bum all the writings of Democritus that
he was able to collect ; but that Amyclas and Cleinias, the
Pythagoreans, prevented him, as it would do no good ; for
that copies of lus books were already in many hands. And it
is plain that that was the case; for Plato, who mentions
nearly all the ancient philosophers, nowhere speaks of Demo-
critus ; not even in those passives where he has occasion to
contradict his theories, evidently, because he said that if he
did, he would be showing his disagreement with the best of
all philosophers ; a man whom even Timon praises in the fol-
lowing terms : —
Like that Democritus, wisest of men.
Sage ruler of his speech ; profound converser.
Whose works I love to read among the first.
IX. But he was, according to the statement made by him-
self in the Little World, a youth when Anaxagoras was an old
man, being forty years younger than he was. And he says,
that he composed the Little World seven hundred and thirty
years after the capture of Troy. And he must have been
bom, ac<)ording to the account given by ApoUodoras in his
Chronicles, in the eightieth olympiad ; but, as Thrasylus says,
in his work entitled the Events, which took place before the
reading of the books of Democritus, in the third year of the
seventy-seventh olympiad, being, as it is there stated, one
year older than Socrates. He must therefore have been a
contemporary of Archelaus, the pupil of Anaxagoras, and of
.^nopides, for he makes mention of this letter. He also
speaks of the theories of Parmenides and Zeno, on the sub-
ject of the One, as they were the men of the highest reputa-
tion in histories, apd he also speaks of Protagoras of Abdera,
who confessedly lived at the same time as Socrates.
X. Athenodorus tells us, in the eighth book of his Conver-
sations, that once, when Hippocrates came to see him, he
ordered some milk to be brought ; and that, when he saw the
milk, he said that it was the milk of a black goat, with her
first kid ; on which Hippocrates marvelled at his accurate
knowledge. Also, as a young giri came with Hippocrates, on
the first day, he saluted her thus, " G-ood morning, my maid ;
394 LI7ES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHEBS.
but on the next day, " Good morning, woman ; " for, indeed,
she had ceased to be a maid daring the night.
XI. And Hermippus relates, that Democritus died in the
following manner : he was exceedingly old, and appeared at
the point of death ; and his sister was lamenting that he
would die during the festiyal of the Thesmophoria,* and so
prevent her from discharging her duties to the Goddess ; and
80 he bade her be of good cheer, and desired her to bring him
hot loaves eveiy day. And, by applying these to his nostrils,
he kept himself alive even over the festival. But when the
days of the festival were passed (and it lasted three days),
then he expired, without any pain, as Hipparchus assures us,
having lived a hundred and nine years. And we have
written an epigram upon him in our collection of poems in
eveiy metre, which runs thus :-—
What man was e'er so wise, who ever did
So great a deed as this Democritus T
Who kept off death, though present for three days,
And entertained him with hot steam of bread.
Such was the life of this man.
XII. Now his principal doctrines were these. That atoms
and the vacuum were the beginning of the universe ; and that
everything else existed only in opinion. That the worlds were
infinite, created, and perishable. But that nothing was created
out of nothing, and that nothing was destroyed so as to become
nothing. That the atoms were infinite both in magnitude
and number, and were borne about through the universe in
endless revolutions. And that thus they produced all the
combinations that exist ; fire, water, air, and earth ; for that
all thes6 things are only combinations of certain atoms ; which
combinations are incapable of being affected by external cir-
* The Thesmophoriarwas a festival in honour of Ceres, celebrated in
various parts of Greece ; and only by married women ; though giris
might perform some of the ceremonies. Herodotus says, that it waji
introduced into Greece from Egypt, by the daughters of Danaus. The
Attic Thesmophoria lasted probably three days, and began on the
eleventh day of the month Pyanession ; the first day was called dvodog,
or KaQodoQ, from the women going in procession to Eleusis ; the second
vn^Ttla, or fasting ; the third was called icaXXiylvcta, as on that day
Ceres was invoked under tb|Ui name, and it was the day of merriment
of the festival.
^^''^
DEMOCBITUS. 395
cumstances, and are unchangeable by reason of their solidity.
Also, that the sun and the moon are formed by such revolutions
and round bodies ; and in like manner the soul is produced ;
and that the soul and the mind are identical : that we see by
the falling of visions across our sight ; and that everything
that happens, happens of necessity. Motion, being the cause
of the production of everything, which he caUs necessity. The
chief good he asserts to be cheerfulness ; whieh, however, he
does not consider the same as pleasure ; as som'e people, who
have misunderstood him, have fancied that he meant ; but he
understands by cheerfulness, a condition according to which
the soul lives calmly and steadily, being disturbed by no fear,
or superstition, or other passion. He calls this state ev6v/i/a,
and fuetfroif, and several other names. Everything which is
made he looks upon as depending for its existence on opinion ;
but atoms and the vacuum he believes exist by nature. These
were his principal opinions.
XIII. Of his books, Thrasylus has given a regular catalogue,
in the same way that he has arranged the works of Plato,
dividing them into four classes.
Now these are his ethical works. The Pythagoras; a
treatise on the Disposition of the Wise Man ; an essay on
those in the Shades Below ; the Tritogeneia (this is so called
because from Minerva three things are derived which hold
together all human afiGsdrs) ; a treatise on Manly Courage or
Ydour ; the Horn of Amalthea ; an essay* on Cheerfulness ; a
volume of Ethical Commentaries. A treatise entitled. For
Cheerfulness, {tbt^dt) is not found.
These are his writings on natural philosophy. The Great
World (which Theophrastus asserts to be the work of Leucip-
pus) ; the Little World ; the Cosmography ; a treatise on the
Planets ; the first book on Nature ; two books on the Nature
of Man, or on Flesh ; an essay on the Mind ; one on the
Senses (some people join these two together in one Volume,
which they entitle, on the Soul) ; a treatise on Juices ; one on
Colours ; one on the Different Figures ; one on the Changes
of Figures ; the Cratyntena (that is to say, an essay, approving
of what has been said in preceding ones); a treatise on
Phsenomenon, or on Providence ; three books on Pestilences,
or Pestilential Evils ; a book of Difficulties. These are his
books on natural philosophy.
J
Z96 UVEB OF EHUEST PHn/MOFEBBSw
His miscelkiieoQS woiks are these. Heaven] j Causes ;
Aerial Caases ; Causes afiSscdng Plane Sni&oes : Causes
refeniug to Fire, and to vbat is in Fire ; Causes affectiiig
Voices ; Canses affecting Seeds, and Plants, and Fmits ; three
books of Canses aflifyting Animals ; MisceDaneoos Causes ; a
treatise on the Magnet. These are his nusceUaneous works.
His mathematical writings are the following. A treatise
on the Difference of Opinion, or on the Contact of the Circle
and the Sphere ; one on Geometry ; one on Numbers ; one
on Incommensorable lines, and Solids, in two books : a
Tolome called Explanations ; the Great Year, or the Astro-
nomical Calendar ; a discossion on the Clepsydra ; the Map
of the Heavens ; Geogr^>hy ; Pologn^hy ; Artmography, or
a discossion on Bays of Li^it. These are his madiematical
works.
His works on mnsic are the following. A treatise on
Rythm and Harmony ; one on Poetry ; one on the beauty of
Epic Poems; one on Euphonioos and Discordant Letters;
one on Homer, or on Propriety of Diction* and Dialects ; one
on Song , one on Words ; the Onomasticon. These are his
mosical works.
The following are his works on art Prognostics ; a treatise
on the Way of Living, called also Dietetics, or the Opinions
of a Physician ; Causes relating to Unfavourable and Favour-
able Opportunities ; a treatise on Agriculture, called also
the Georgic; one on Painting; Tactics, and Fighting in
heavy Armour. These are his works on such subjects.
Some authors also give a list of some separate treatises
which they collect from his Commentaries. A tre&tise on the
Sacred Letters seen at Babylon ; another on the Sacred
Letters seen at Meroe ; the Voyage round the Ocean ; a
treatise on History ; a Chaldaic Discourse ; a Phiygian Dis-
course; a treatise on Fever; an essay on those who are
attacked with Cough after illness ; the Principles of Laws ;
Things made by Hand, or Problems.
As to the other books which some writers ascribed to him,
some are merely extracts from his other writings, and some
are confessedly the work of others. And this is a sufficient
account of his writings.
* Namely, reaBoning well, ezpreesmg one's self well, and acting welL
PBOTAGORA& 807
XIV. There were six people of the name of Democritus.
The first was this man of whom we are speaking ; the second
was a musician of Chios, who lived about the same time ; the
third was a sculptor who is mentioned by Antigonus; the
fourth is a man who wrote a treatise on the Temple at Ephesus,
and on the city of Samothrace ; the fifth was an epigrammatic
poet, of greatjperspicuity and elegance ; the sixth was a citizen
of Pergamus, who wrote a treatise on Oratory.
LIFE OF PROTAGORAS.
I. Pbotagoras was the son of Artemon, or, as Apollodorus
says (which account is corroborated by Deinon, in his Histoiy
of Persia), of Mseander. He was a native of Abdera, as
Heraclides Ponticus tell us, in his treatise on Laws ; and the
same authority informs us that he made laws for the Thurians.
But, according to the statement of Eupolis, in his Flatterers,
he was a native of Teos ; for he says :—
Within you'U find Protagoras, of Teos.
He, and Prodicas of Ceos, used to levy contributions for
giving their lectures ; and Plato, in his Protagoras, says that
Prodicas had a very powerful voice.
II. Protagoras was a pupil of Democritus. And he was
sumamed Wisdom, as Phavorinus informs us in his Universal
History.
III. He was the first person who asserted that in every
question there were two sides to the argument exactly opposite
to one another. And he used to employ them in his arguments,
being the first person who did so. But he began something
in this n^anner : '* Man is the measure of all things : of those
things which exist as he is ; and of those things which do not
exist as he is not." And he used to say that nothing else was
soul except the senses, as Plato says, in the Thesetetus ; and
that everything was true. And another of his treatises he be-
gins in this way : " Concerning the Gods, I am not able to know
898 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHBES.
to a certainty whether they exist or whether they do not. For
there are many things which prevent one from knowing,
especially the obscurity of the subject, and the shortness of
the life of man." And on account of this beginning of his
treatise, he was banished by the Athenians. And they burnt
his books in the market-place, calling them in by the public
crier, and compelling all who possessed them to surrender
them.
He was the first person who demanded pajrment of his
pupils ; fixing his charge at a hundred minse. He was also
the first person who gave a precise definition of the parts of
time ; and who explained the value of opportunity, and who
instituted contests of argument,' and who armed the disputants
with the weapon of sophism. He it was too who first left facts
out of consideration, and feistened his arguments on words ; and
who was the parent of the present superficial and futile kinds
of discussion. On which account Timon says of him : —
Protagoras, that slippery arguer,
In disputatious contests fully skilled.
He too, it was, who first invented that sort of argument
which is called the Socratic, and who first employed the
reasonings of Antisthenes, which attempt to establish the point
that they cannot be contradicted ; as Plato tells us in his
Euthydemus. He was also the first person who practised
regular discussions on set subjects, as Artemidorus, the dialec-
tician, tells us in his treatise against Ohrysippus. He was
also the original inventor of the porter's pad for men to carry
their burdens on, as we are assured by Aristotle, in his book
on Education ; for he himseK was a porter, as Epicurus says
somewhere or other. And it was in this way that he became
highly thought of by Democritus, who saw him as he was tying
up some sticks.
He was also the first person who divided discourse into
four parts ; entreaty, interrogation, answer, and injunction :
tliough some writers make tlie parts seven ; narration, interro-
gation, answer, injunction, promise, entreaty, and invocation ;
and these he called the foundations of discourse: but Alli-
domas says that there are four divisions of discourse ; affirma-
tion, denial, interrogation, and invocation.
V. The first of his works that he ever read in public was
PROTAGOBAS. 899
the treatise on the Gods, the beginning of which we have
quoted above, and he read this at Athens in the house of
Euripides, or, as some say, in that of Megaclides; others say
that he read it in the Lyceum ; his pupil, Archagoras, the son
of Theodotus, giving him the aid of his voice. His accuser
was Pythodorus, the son of Polyzelus, one of the four hundred ;
but Aristotle calls him Evathlus.
VI. The writings, of his which are still extant are these : a
treatise on the Art of Contention; one on Wrestling; one on
Mathematics ; one on a Republic ; one on Ambition ; one on
Virtues ; one on the Original Condition of Man ; one on those
in the Shades Below ; one on the Things which are not done
properly by Men ; one volume of Precepts ; one essay entitled
Justice in Pleading for Hire ; two books of Contradictions.
These are his books.
Plato also addressed a dialogue to him.
VII. Philochorus relates that, as he was sailing to Sicily liis
ship was wrecked,, and that this circumstance is alluded to by
Euripides in his Ixion ; and some say that he died on his
journey, being about ninety years old. But Apollodorus states
his age at seventy years, and says that he was a sophist forty
years, and that he flourished about the eighty-fourth Olympiad.
There is an epigram upon him written by myself, in the fol-
lowing terms : —
I hear accounts of you, Protagoras,
That, travelling far from Athens, on the road,
Tou, an old man, and quite infirm, did die.
For Cecrops* city drove you forth to exile ;
But you, though 'scaping dread Minerva's might,
Could not escape the outspread arms of Pluto.
VIII. It is said that once, when he demanded of Evathlus
his pupil payment for his lessons, Evathlus said to him, " But
I have never been victorious in an argument;" and he rejoined,
** But if I gain my cause, then I should naturally receive the
fruits of my victory, and so would you obtain the fruits of
yours."
IX. There was also another Protagoras, an astronomer, on
whom Euphorion wrote an elegy ; and a third also, who was a
philosopher of the Stoic sect.
400 LIVES OF EHIN^T PHILOSOPHEBS.
LIFE OF DIOGENES, OF APOLLONIA.
I. Diogenes was a native of Apollonia, and the son of
Apollothemis, a natural philosopher of high reputation ; and
he was, as AntiBthenes reports, a pupil of Anaximenes. He
was also a contemporary of Anaxagoras, and Demetrius Pha-
lereus says, in his Defence of Socrates, that he was very
unpopular at Athens, and even in some danger of his life.
II. The following were his principal doctrines ; that the
air was an element ; that the worlds were infinite, and that
the vacuum also was infinite ; that the air, as it was condensed,
and as it was rarified, was the productive cause of the worlds ;
that nothing can be produced out of nothing;* and that nothing
can be destroyed so as to become nothing ; that the earth is
round, firmly planted in the middle of the universe, having
acquired its situation from the circumvolutions of the hot prin-
ciple around it, and its consistency from the cold.
The first words of his treatise are : —
"It appears to me that he. who begins any treatise ought to
lay down principles about which there can be no dispute, and
that his exposition of them ought to be simple and dig-
nified.'*
LIFE OF ANAXARCHUS.
I. Anaxabghus was a native of Abdera. He was a pupil of
Diogenes, of Smyrna; but, as some say, of Metrodorus, of
Cliios ; who said that he was not even sure that he knew
nothing ; and Metrodorus was a pupU of Nessus, of Chios ;
though others assert that he was a disciple of Democritus.
II. Anaxarchus too enjoyed the intimacy of Alexander, and
flourished about the hundred and tenth olympiad. He had
for an enemy Nicocreon, the tyrant of Cyprus. And on one
occasion, when Alexander, at a banquet, asked him what he
* This is thus embodied by Lucretius : — .
Kaia nihil e mhHo; in nihihim nil posse revertL
ANAXABGHUS. 401
thought of the entertainment, fie is said to have replied, ** 0
king, everything is provided very sumptuously ; and the only
thing wanting is to have the head of some satrap served up ;"
hinting at Nicocreon. And Nicocreon did not forget his
grudge against him for this ; hut after the death of the king,
when Anaxarchus, wljo was making a voyage, was driven
against his will into Cyprus, he took him and put him in a
mortar, and commanded him to he pounded to death with iron
pestles. And then they say that he, disregarding this punish-
ment, uttered that celebrated saying, " Beat the bag of Anax-
archus, but you will not beat Anaxarchus himself." And then,
when Nicocreon commanded that his tongue should be cut out,
it is said that he bit it off, and spit it at him. And we have
vmtten an epigram upon him in the following terms : —
Beat more and more ; you're beating but a bag ;
Beat, Anaxarchus is in heav'n with Jove.
Hereafter Proserpine will rack your bones.
And say, Thus perish, you accursed beater.
III. Anaxarchus, on account of the evenness of his temper
and the tranquillity of his Hfe, was called the Happy. And he
was a man to whom it was very easy to reprove men and bring
them to temperance. Accordingly, he produced an alteration
in Alexander who thought himself a God, for when he saw the
blood flowing from some wound that he had received, he
pointed to him with his finger, and said, " This is blood, and
not : —
'* Such stream as issues from a wounded God ;
Pure emanation, uncorrupted flood.
Unlike our gross, diseas'd, terrestrial blood."*
But Plutarch says that it was Alexander himself who quoted
these lines to his friends.
They also tell a story that Anaxarchus once drank to him,
and then showed the goblet, and said : —
' Shall any mortal hand dare wound a Qod f
♦ liom, n. v. 340. Pope's version, 422.
D D
40^ LIYBS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHEBS.
LIFE OF PYRRHO.
I. Ptbruo was a citizen of Elis, and the son of Pleistarcbns^
as Diocles infonns us, and, as Apollodognis in his Ohronidea;
asserts, he was originally a painter.
II. And he was a pupil of Bryson, the son"of Stilpon, as we
are told by Alexander in his Chronicles. After that he attached
himself to Auaxarchus, and attended him everywhere ; so that
he even went as far as the Gymnosophists, in India, and the
III. Owing to which circumstance, he seems to have taken
a noble line in philosophy, introducing the doctrine of incom-
prehensibility, and of the necessity of suspending one's judg-
ment, as we learn from Ascanius, of Abdera. For he used to
say that nothing was honourable, or disgraceful, or just, or
unjust. And on the same principle he asserted that there
was no such thing as downright truth ; but that men did
everything in consequence of custom and law. For that
iiothing was any more this than that. And his life corre-
sponded to his principles ; for he never shunned anything, and
rever guarded against anything ; encountering everything,
even waggons for instance, and precipices, and dogs, and every-
thing of that sort ; committing nothing whatever to his senses.
So that he used to be saved, as Antigonus the Carystian tells
us, by his friends who accompanied him. And -^nesidemus
says that he studied philosophy on the principle of suspending
his judgment on all points, without however, on any occasion
acting in an imprudent manner, or doing anything without
due consideration. And he lived to nearly ninety years of
age.
IV. And Antigonus, of Carystus, in his account of Pyrrho,
mentions tbe following circumstances respecting him ; that he
was originally a person of no reputation, but a poor man, and
a painter ; and that a picture of some camp-bearers, of very
moderate execution, was preserved in the Gymnasium at Elis,
which was his work ; and that he used to walk out into the
fields and seek solitary places, very rarely appearing to his
family at home ; and ^t he did this in consequence of
having heard some Indian reproaching Anaxarchus for never
i
' PYBRHO. 403
teaching any one else any good, but for devoting all his time to
paying court to princes in palaces. He relates of him too,
that he always maintained the same demeanour, so that if any
one left him in the middle of his delivery of a discourse, he
remained and continued what he was saying ; although, when
a young man, he ,was of a very excitable tetnperament. Often
too, says Antigonus, he would go away for a time, vnthout
telling any one beforehand, and taking any chance persons
whom he chose for his companions. And once, when Anaz-
archus had fallen into a pond, he passed by without assisting
him ; and when some one blamed him for this, Anaxarchus
himself praised his indifference and absence of all emotion.
On one occasion he was detected talking to himself, and
when he was asked the reason, he said that he was studying
how to be good. In his investigations he was never despised
by any one, because he always spoke explicitly and straight to
the question that had been put to him. On which account
Nausiphanes was charmed by him even when he was quite
young. And he used to say that he should like to be endowed
with the disposition of Pyrrho, without losing his own power
of eloquence. And he said too, tliat Epicurus, who admired
the conversation and manners of Pyrrho, was frequently asking
him about him.
V. He was so greatly honoured by his country, that he was
appointed a priest ; and on his account all the philosophers
were exempted from taxation. He had a great many imitators
of his impassiveness ; in reference to which Timon speab^
thus of him in his Python, and in his Silli :—
Now, you old man, you Pyrrho, how could you
Find an escape from all the slavish doctrines
And yain imaginations of the Sophists ?
How did you free yourself from all the bonds
Of sly chicane, and artful deep persuasion f
How came you to neglect what sort of breeze
Blows round your Greece, and what's the origin
And end of everything ?
And again, in his Images, he says : —
These things, my heart, 0 Pyrrho, longs to hear,
How you eiyoy such ease of life and quiet,
The only man as happy as a Gk>d.
And the Athenians presented him with the freedom of their
D D 2
404 UYEB OF EMINENT PHIL080PHEBB.
city, as Diocles tells as, because he had slaiii Cotjs, the
Thracian.
VI. He also lired in a most blameless manner with his
sister, who wm a midwife, as Eratosthenes relates, in his
treatise on Riches and Poverty ; so that he himself used to
cany poultry, and pigs too if he could get any, into the market-
place and sell them. And he used to dean all the furniture
of the house without expressing any annoyance. And it is
said that he carried his indifference so fiu that he even washed
a pig. And once, when he was very angiy about something
connected with his sister (and her name was Philista), and
some one took him up, he said, " The display of my indiffer-
ence does not depend on a woman.* On another occasion,
when he was driven back by a dog which was attacking him,
he said to some one who blamed him for being discomposed,
" That it was a difficult thing entirely to put off humanity ;
but that a man ought to strive with all his power to counteract
circumstances with his actions if possible, and at all events
with his reason.** They also tell a story that once, when some
medicines of a consuming tendency, and some cutting and
cautery was applied to him for some wound, that he never
even contracted his brow. And Timon intimates his disposi-
tion plainly enough in the letters which he wrote to Python.
Moreover, Philo, the Athenian, who was a friend of his, said
that he was especially fond of Democritus ; aiid next to him
of Homer; whom he admired greatly, and was continually
saying : —
But as the race of falling leaves decay.
Such is the fote of man.*
^e used also, as it is said, to compare men to wasps, and
flies, and birds, and to quote the following lines : —
Die then, my friend, what boots it to deplore ?
The great, liie good Patrodus is no mora
He, far thy better, was foredoomed to die ;
And thou, doest thou bewsQ mortality ? f
And so he would quote anything that bore on the uncertainty
and emptiness and fickleness of the affairs of man. Posi-
donius tells the following anecdote about him : that when some
people who were sailing with him were looking gloomy because
• IL vL 146. t a zzL 106. Pope's version, 115.
PYRRHO. 405
of a storm, he kept a calm countenance, and comforted their
minds, exhibiting himself on deck eating a pig, and saying
that it became a wise man to preserve an untroubled spirit in
that nlanner. Memenius is' the only writer who asserts that
he used to deliver positive dogmas.
VII. He had many eminent disciples, and among them
Eurylochus, of whom the following defective characteristic is
related ; for, they say, that he was once worked up to such a
pitch of rage that he took up a spit with the meat on it, and
chased the cook as far as the market-place. And once in
Elis he was so harassed by some people who put questions to
him in the middle of his discourses, that he threw down his
cloak and swam across the Alpheus. He was the greatest
possible enemy to the Sophists, as Timon tells us. But Philo,
on the contrary, was very fond of arguing ; on which account
Timon speaks of liim thus :—
Avoiding men to study all devoted,
He ponders with himself ; and never heeds
The glory or disputes which harass Philo.
Besides these disciples, Pyrrho also had Hecateus of Abdera,
and Timon the. Phliasian, who wrote the Silli, and whom we
shall speak of hereafter ; and also Nausiphanes, of Teos, who,
as some say, was the master of Epianus.
VIII. AH these men were called Pyrrhoneans from their
master ; and also doubters, and sceptics, and ephectics, or
suspenders of their judgment, and investigators, from their
principles. And their philosophy was called . investigatory,
from their investigating or seeking the truth on all sides ; and
sceptical from their being always doubting ((rxWro^a/), and
never finding ; and ephectic, from the disposition which they
encouraged ^Jter investigation, I mean the suspending of their
judgment (s^x^)'* ^^^ doubting, because they asserted that the
dogmatic philosophers only doubted, and that they did the
same. [And they were called Pyrrhoneans from Pyrrho him-
self.]
But Theodosius, in his Chapters on Scepticism, contends,
that we ought not to call the Pyrrhonean school sceptical;
for since, says he, the motion and agitation of the mind in
each individual is incomprehensible to others, we are unable to
know what was the disposition of Pyrrho ; and if we do not
406 UYES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
know it we ought not to be called Pyrrhoneans. He also
adds that Pyrrho was not the original inventor of Scepticism,
and that he had no particular dogma of any kind ; and that,
consequently, it can only be called Pyrrhonism from some
similarity. Some say that Homer was the original founder of
this school ; since he at different times gives different accounts
of the same circumstance, as much as any one else ever did ;
and since he never dogmatizes definitively respecting affirma-
tion ; they also say that the maxims of the seven wise men
were sceptical; §uch as that, "Seek nothing in excess," and
that, "Suretyship is near calamity;" which shows that calamity
follows a man who has given positive and certain surety ; they
also argue that Archilochus and Euripides were Sceptics ; and
Archilochus speaks thus : —
And now, O Olaucus, son of Leptines,
Such is the mind of mortal man, which changes
With every day that Jupiter doth send.
And Euripides says : —
Why then do men assert that wretched mortals
t. Are with true wisdom gifted ; for on you
We all depend ; and we do everything
Which pleases you.
Moreover, Xenophanes, and Zeno the Eleatic, and Democritus
were also Sceptics; of whom Xenophanes speaks thus: — *
And no man knows distinctly anything,
And no man ever will
And Zeno endeavours to^put an end to the doctrine of motion by
saying: " The object moved does not move either in the place in
which it is, or in that in which it is not." Democritus, too, discards
the qualities, where he says : what is cold is cold in opinion,
and what is hot is hot in opinion ; but atoms and the vacuum
exist in reality. And again he says : " But we know nothing
really ; for truth lies in the bottom." Plato, too, following
them, attributes the knowledge of the tru^h to the Gods and
to the sons of the Gods, and leaves men only the investigation
of probability. And Euripides says : —
Who now can tell whether to live may not '^ '
Be properly to die. And whether thai
Which men do call to die, may not in truth •
Be but the entrance into real life ?
PYRRHO. 407
And Empedocles speaks thus : —
These things are not perceptible to sight,
Nor to the ears, nor comprehensible
To human intellect.
And in a preceding passage he says : —
Believing nothing, but such drcumstanoes
As have befeJlen each.
Heraclitus, too, says, "Let us not form conjectures at
random, about things of the greatest importance." And Hip-
pocrates delivers his opinion in a very doubtful manner, such
as becomes a man ; and before them all Homer has said : —
Long in the field of words we may contend,
Reproach is infinite and knows no end.
I
And immediately after : —
Armed, or with truth or falsehood, right or ¥n:ong.
(So voluble a weapon is the tongue),
Wounded we wound, and neither side can fail.
For every man has equal strength to rail :*
Intimating the equal vigour and antethetical force of words. And
the Sceptics persevered in overthrowing all the dogmas of every
sect, while they themselves asserted nothing dogmatically;
and contented themselves with expressing the opinions of
others, without affirming anything themselves, not even that
they did affirm nothing ; so that even discarded all positive
denial; for to say, ** We affirm nothing," was to affirm some-
thing. " But we," said they, ** enunciate the doctrines of others,
to prove our own perfect indifference ; it is just as if we were
to express the same thing by a simple sigu." So these words,
** We affirm nothing," indicate the absence of all affirmation,
just as other propositions, such as, " Not more one thing than
another," or, " Every reason has a corresponding reason
opposed to it," and all such maxims indicate a similar idea.
But the phrase, *' Not more one thing," &c., has sometimes an
affirmative sense, indicating the equality of certain things, as
for instance, in this sentence, ** A pirate is not worse than a
liar." But by the sceptics this is said not positively, hut
negatively, as for instance, where the speaker contests a point
>y- * Homer, H xz. 248. Pope's version, 294.
408 LIYES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHEBS.
and says, "It was not Scylla, any more than it was Chimffira."
And the word '' more," itself, is sometimes used to indicate a
comparison, as when we say, " That honey is more sweet than
grapes." And at other times it is used positively, and at the
same time negatively, as when we say, " Virtue profits us more
than hurts us ;** for in this phrase we intimate tliat virtue does
profit, and does not hurt us. But the Sceptics aholish the
whole expression, "Not more than it;" saying, that ** Pru-
dence has not existence, any more than it has no existence."
Accordingly, then, expression, as Timon says in his Python,
indicates nothing more than an ahsence of all affirmation, or
of all assent of ^e judgment.
Also the expression, " Every reason has a corresponding
reason," <&c., does in the same manner indicate the suspension
of the judgment; for if, while the facts are different, the
expressions are equipollent, it follows that a man must he
quite ignorant of the real truth.
Besides this, to this asseition there is a contrary assertion
opposed, which, after having destroyed all others, turns
itself against itself, and destroys itself, resemhling» as
it were, those cathartic medicines which, after they have
cleansed the stomach, then discharge themselves, and are got
rid of. And so the dogmatic philosophers say, that all these
reasonings are so far from overturning the authority of reason
that they confirm it. To this the Sceptics reply, that they
only employ reason as an instrument, because it is impossible
to overturn the authority of reason, without employing rea-
son ; just as if we assert that there is no such thing as space,
we must employ the word "space," but that not dogmati-
cally, but demonstratively ; and if we assert that nothing
exists according to necessity, it is unavoidable that we must
use the word "necessity." The same principle of interpretation
did they adopt ; for they affirmed that facts are not by nature
such as they appear to be, but that they only seem such ; and
they said, that what they doubt is not what they think, for
their thoughts are evident to themselves, but the reality of
the things which are only made known to them by their
sensations.
fThe Pyrrhonean system, then, is a simple explanation of
appearances, or of notions of every kind, by means of which,
comparing one thing with another, one arrives at the con-
PYBBHO. 409
elusion, that there is nothing in all these notions, but con-
tradiction and confusion; as ^nesidemus says in his Intro-
duction to Pyrrhoniaim. As to the contradictions which are
found in those speculations, when they have pointed out in
what way each fact is convincing, they then, by the same
means, take away all belief from it; for they say that we
regard as certain, those things which always produce similar
impressions on the senses, those which are the offspring of
habit, or which are established by the laws, and those too
which give pleasure or excite wonder. And they prove that
the reasons opposite to those on which our assent is founded
are entitled to equal belief.
IX. The difficulties which they suggest, relating to the
agreement subsisting between what appears to the senses, and
what is comprehended by the intellect, divide themselves into
ten modes of argument, according to which the subject and
object of our knowledge is incessantly changing. And these
ten modes Phyrrho lays down in the following manner.
The first relates to the difference which one remarks between
the sentiments of animals in respect of pleasure, and pain,
and what is injurious, and what is advantageous ; and from
this we conclude, that the same objects do not always produce
the same impressions; and that the fact of this difference
ought to be a reason with us for suspending our judgment.
For there are some animals which are produced without any
sexual connexion, as those which live in the fire, and the
Arabian Phoenix, and worms. Others again are engendered
by copulation, as men and others of that kind ; and some are
composed in one way, and others in another; on which account
they also differ in their senses, as for instance, hawks are
very keen-sighted ; dogs have a most acute scent. It is plain,
therefore, that the things seen produce different impressions
on those animals which differ in their power of sight So,
too, young branches are eagerly eaten by the goat, but are
bitter to ipankind; and hemlock is nutritious for the quail, but
deadly to man ; and pigs eat their own -dung, but a horse does
not.
The second mode refers to the nature and idiosyncracies of
men. According to'Demophon, the steward of Alexander
used to feel warm in the shade, and to shiver in the sun.
And Andron, the Argive, as Aristotle tells us, travelled
410 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
through the dry parte of Lihya, without once drinking.
Again, one man is fond of medicine, another of farming,
another of commerce ; and the same pursuits are gQod for
one man, and injurious to another; on which account, we
ought to suspend our opinions.
The third mode, is that which has for ite object the differ-
ence of the organs of sense. Accordingly, an apple presents
itself to the sisht as yellow, to the taste as sweet, to the
Bmell as fragmnt; and the same form is -seen, in very differ,
ent lights, according to the differences of mirrors. It follows,
therefore, that what is seen is just as likely to be something
else as the reality.
The fourth refers to the dispositions of the subject, and the
changes in general to which it is liable. Such as health,
sickness, sleep, waking, joy, grief, youth, old age, courage,
fear, want, abundance, hatred, friendship, warmth, cold, easi-
ness of breathing, oppression of the respiratory organs, and so
on. The objects, therefore, appear different to us according to
the disposition of the moment ; for, even madmen are not in a
state contrary to nature. For, why are we to say that of them
more than of ourselves ? For we too look at the sun as if it
stood still. Theon, of Tithora, the Stoic, used to walk about
in his sleep ; and a slave of Pericles' used, when in the same
state, to walk on the top of the house.
The fifth mode is conversant with laws, and established
customs, and belief in mythical traditions, and the conventions
of art, and dogmatical opinions. This mode embraces all that
relates to vice, and to honesty ; to the true, and to the false ; to
the good, and to the bad ; to the Gods, and to the production,
and destruction of all visible objects. Accordingly, the same
action is just in the case of some people, and unjust in that of
others. And good in the case of some, and bad in that of
others. On tbis principle we see that the Persians do not
think it unnatural for a man to marry his daughter ; but among
the Greeks it is unlawful Again, the MassagetsB, as Eudoxus
tells us in the first book of his Travels over the World, have
their women in common ; but the Greeks do not And the
Cilicians^ delight in piracy, but the Greeks avoid it. So again,
different nations worship different Gods ; and some believe in
the providence of God, and others do not. The Egyptians
embalm their dead, and then bury them ; the Komaus bum
PYRRHO. 411
tliem ; the PaBonians throw them into the lakes. All these
considerations show that we ought to suspend our judgment.
The sixth mode has reference to the promiscuousness and
confusion of objects ; according to which nothing is seen by
us simply and by itself; but in combination either with air,
or with light, or with moisture, or with solidity, or heat, oi*
cold, or motion, or evaporation or some other power. Accord-
ingly, purple exhibits a different hue in the sun, and in the
moon, and in' a lamp. And our own complexions appear
different when seen at i^oonday and at sunset. And a stone
which one cannot lift in the air, is easily displaced in the
water, either because it is heavy itself and is made light by
the water, or because it is light in itself and is made heavy by
the air. So that we cannot positively know the peculiar
qualities of anything, just as we cannot discover oil in oint«-
ment.
The seventh mode has reference to distances, and position,
and space, and to the objects which are in space. In this
mode one establishes the fact that objects which we believe to
be large, sometimes appear small ; that those which we believe
to be square, sometimes appear round ; that those which we
fancy even, appear full of projections ; thosp which we think
straight, seem bent ; and those which we believe to be colour •
less, appear of quite a different complexion. Accordingly, the
sun, on account of its distance from us, appears small. The
mountains too, at a distance,* appear airy masses and smooth,
but when beheld close, they are rough. Again, the sun has
one appearance at his rise, and quite a different one at midday.
And the same body looks very different in a wood from what
it does on plain ground. So too, the appearance of an object
changes according to its position as regards us ; for instance,
the .neck of a dove varies as it turns. Since then, it is impos-
sible to view these things irrespectively of place and position,
it is clear that their red nature is not known.
The eighth mode has respect to the magnitudes or quantities
of things ; or to the heat or coldness, or to the speed or slow-
* There is too remarkable a similarity in this to Campbell's lines :—
'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view,
And robes the mountains in their azure hue :
to allow one to pass it over without pointing it out.
412 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
ness, or to the paleness or variety of colour of the snbjeet.
For instance, a moderate quantity of wine when taken invigo-
rates, but an excessive quantity weakens. And the same is
the case with food, and other similar things.
The ninth depends upon the frequency, or rarity, or
strangeness of the thing under consideration. For instance,
earthquakes excite no wonder among those nations with whom
they are of frequent occurrence ; nor does the sun, because he
is seen every day.
The ninth mode is called by Phavorinus, the eighth, and by
Sextus and ^nesidemus, the tenth; and Sextus calls the
tenth the eighth, which Phavorinus reckons the tenth as the
ninth in order.
The tenth mode refers to the comparison between one thing
and another ; as, for instance, between what is light and what
is heavy ; between what is strong and what is weak ; between
what is greater and what is less ; what is above and what is
below. For instance, that which is on the right, is not on the
right intrinsically aud by nature, but it is looked upon as such
in consequence of its relation to something else ; and if that
other thing be transposed, then it will no longer be on the
right. In the same way, a man is spoken of as a father, or
brother, or relation to some one else ; and day is called so in
relation to the sun : and eveiything has its distinctive name in
relation to human thought : therefore, those things which are
known in relation to others, are unknown of themselves.
And these are the ten modes.
X. But Agrippa adds five other modes to them. One
derived from the disagreement of opinions ; another from the
necessity of proceeding ad infinitum from one reasoning to
another ; a thurd from relation ; a fourth from hypothesis ; and
the last from the reciprocal nature of proofs.
That which refers to the diss^reement of opinions, shows
that all the questions which philosophers propose to themselves,
or which people in general discuss, are full of uncertainty and
contradiction.
That which is derived from the necessity of proceeding in-
cessantly from one reasoning to another, demonstrates that it
is impossible for a man ever, in his researches, to arrive at
undeniable truth ; since one truth is only to be established by
another truth ; and so on, ad infinitum.
PYRRHO. 413
The mode which is derived from relation rests on the
doctrine that no object is ever perceived independently and
entirely by itself, but always in its relation to something else ;
so that it is impossible to know its nature correctly.
That which depends on hypothesis is directed against those
aiders who pretend that it is necessary to accept the princi-
ples of things taken absolutely, and that one must place one's
faith in them without any examination, which is an absurdity ;
for one may just as well lay down the opposite principles.
The fifth mode, that one namely which arises from the
reciprocal nature of proofs, is capable of application whenever
tlie proof of the truth which we are looking for supposes, as a
necessary preUminary, our belief in that truth ; for instance, if,
after we have proved the porosity of bodies by their evapora-
tions, we return and prove the evaporations by the porosity.
XI. These Sceptics then deny the existence of any demon-
stration, of any test of truth, of any signs, or causes, or motion,
or learning, and of anything as intrinsically or naturally good
or bad. For every demonstration, say they, depends either on
things which demonstrate themselves, or on principles which
are indemonstrable. If on things which demonstrate them-
selves, then these things themselves require demonstration ;
and BO on ad infinitum. If on principles which are indemon-
strable, then, the veiy moment that either the sum total of
these principles, or even one single one of them, is incoiTectly
urged, the whole demonstration falls instantly to pieces. But
if any one supposes, they add, that there are principles which
require no demonstration, that man deceives himself strangely,
not seeing that it is necessary for him in the first place to
establish this point, that they contain their proof in themselves.
For a man cannot prove that there are four elements, because
there are four elements.
Besides, if particular proofs are denied in a complex de-
monstration, it must follow that the whole demonstration is
also incorrect. Again, if we are to know that an argument is
really a demonstrative proof, we must have a test of truth ;
and in order to establish a test, we require a demonstrative
proof; and these two things must be devoid of every kind of
certainty, since they bear reciprocally the one on the other.
How then is any one to arrive at certainty about obscure
matters, if one is ignorant even how one ought to attempt to
4U LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHEBS.
prove them ? For what oue is desirous to understand is not
what the appearance of things is, but what their nature and
essence is.
They show, too, that the dogmatic philospphers act with
great simplicity ; fdr that the conclusions which they draw
frpm ^eir hypothetioal principles, are not scientific truths but
mere suppositions ; and that, in the same manner, one might
estal^lish the most improbable propositions. They also say
that those who pretend that one ought not to judge of things
by the circumstances which surround them, or by their aoces-
series, but that one ought to take their nature itself as one's
guide, do not perceive that, while they pretend to give the
precise measure and definition of everything, if the objects
present such and such an appearance, that depends solely on
their position and relative arrangement. They conclude from
thence, that it is necessary to say that everything is true, or
that everything is false. For if certain things only are true,
how is one to recognize them. Evidently it will not be the
senses which judge in that case of the objects of sensation,
for all appearances are equal to the senses ; nor will it be
the intellect, for the same reason. But besides these two facul-
ties, there does not appear to be any other test or criterion at
all. So, say they, if we desire to arrive at any certainty with
Inspect to any object which comes under either sense or
intellect, we must first establish those opinions which are laid
down previously as bearing on those objects. For some people
have denied this doctrine, and others have overturned that ; it
is therefore indispensable that they should be judged of either
by the senses or by the intellect. And the authority of each
of these faculties is contested; it is therefore impossible to
form a positive judgment of the operations of the senses and
of the intellect; and if the contest between the different
opinions, compels us to a neutrality, then the measure which
appeared proper to apply to the appreciation of all those
objects is at the same time put an end to, and one must fix a
similar valuation on everything.
Perhaps our opponent will say, " Are then appearances
trustworthy or deceitful?"* We answer that, if they are
* " Diogenes here appears (thougli he gives no intimation of his
doing so,) to be transcribing the reasonings of some one of the Sceptics."
French TraauL
^ PYRRHO. 415
tnistworthy, the other side has nothing to object to those to
whom the contraiy appearance presents itself. For, as he who
says that such and such a thing appears to him is trustworthy,
BO also IS he who says that the contrary appears to him. And
if appearances are deceitful, then they do not deserve any
confidence when they assert what appears to them to be true.
We are not bound then to believe that a thing is true, merely
because it obtains assent. For all men do not yield to the same
reasons; and even the same individual does not always see things
in the same light. Persuasion often depends on external cir
cumstances, on the authority of the speaker, on his ability, on
the elegance of his language, on habit, or even on pleasure.
They also, by this train of reasoning, suppress the criterion
of truth. Either the criterion has been decided on, or it has
not. And if it has. not, it does not deserve any confidence,
and it cannot be of any use at all in aiding us to discern truth,
from falsehood. If, on the other hand, it has been decided oh,
it then enters into the class of particular things which require
a criterion, and in that case to judge apd to be judged amount
to the same thing; the criterion which judges is itself judged
of by something else, that again by a third criterion, and so
on ad infinitum. Add to this, say they, the fact that people
are not even agreed as to the nature of the criterion of truUi ;
sonae say that man is the criterion, others that it is the senses
which are so : one set places reason in the van, another class
rely upon cataleptic perception.
As to man himself, he disagrees both with himself and with
others, as the diversity of laws and customs proves. The
senses are deceivers, and reason disagrees with itself. * Cata-
leptic perception is judged of by the intellect, and the intellect
changes in various manners; accordingly, we can never find
any positive criterion, and in consequence, truth itself wholly
eludes our search.
They also affirm that there are no such things as signs ; for
if there are signs, they argue they must be such as are appre-
hended either by the senses or by the intellect. Now, there
are none which are apprehended by the senses, for everythinff
which is apprehended by the senses is general, while a sign is
something particular. Moreover, any object which is appre-
hended by the senses has an existence of its own, while signs
are only relative. Again, signs are not apprehended by the
410 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHEBS.
intellect, for in that case they would he either the visible
manifestation of a visible thiog, or the invisible manifestation
of an invisible thing, or the invisible sign of a visible thing ;
or the visible sign of an invisible thing. But none of all
these cases are possible ; there are therefore no such things as
signs at all.
There is therefore no such thing as a visible sign of a visible
thing ; for that which is visible has no need of a sign. Nor,
again, is there any invisible sign of an invisible thing ; for
when anything is manifested by means of another thing, it
must become visible. On the same principle there is no in-
visible sign of a visible object; for that which aids in the
perception of something else must be visible. Lastly, there
is no visible manifestation of an invisible thing ; for as a sign
is something wholly relative, it must be perceived in that of
which it is the sign ; and that is not the case. It follows,
therefore, that none of those things which are not visible in
themselves admit of being perceived ; for one considers signs'
as things which aid in the perception of that which is not
evident by itself.
They also wholly discard, and, as far as depends on them,
overturn the idea of any cause, by means of this same train of
reasoning. Cause is something relative. It is relative to that
of which it is the cause. .But that which is relative is only
conceived, and has no real existence. The idea of a cause
then is a pure conception ; for, inasmuch as it is a cause, it
must be a cause of something ; otherwise it would be no cause
at all. In the same way as a father cannot be a father, unless
there exists some being in respect of whom one gives him the
title of father ; so too a cause stands on the same ground. For,
supposing that nothing exists relatively to which a cause can
be spoken of ; then, as there is no production, or destruction,
or anything of that sort, there can likewise be no cause.
However, let us admit that there are such things as causes.
In that case then, either a body must be the cause of a
body, or that which is incorporeal must be the cause of that
which is incorporeal. Now, neither of these cases is possible ;
therefore, there is no such thing as cause. In fact, one
body cannot be the cause of another body, since both bodies
must have the same nature; and if it be said that one is
the cause, inasmuch as it is a body, then the other must
PYRRHO. • 417
nme reason. And in that case one would
whiHiiffie • . > causes; two agents without any passive
sajB tk: •:
^ «la> is • -poreal thing cannot be the cause of another
if &Pf<eL' for the same reason. Also, an incorporeal
confide- rhe cause of a body, because nothing that
We ar- n produce a body. Nor, on the other hand,
beca> he cause of anytMng incorporeal, because in
reas i there must be some passive subject matter ;
in ^ - incorporeal is by its own nature protected
cu' passive subject, it cannot be the object of any
tl ver. There is, therefore, no such tlung as any
From all which it follows, that the first prin-
Jiings have no reality ; for such a 'principle, if
iiust be both the agent and the eflBcient cause.
ore is no such thing as motion. For whatever
■> moved either in the place in which it is, or
which it is not It certainly is not moved in
in which it is, and it is impossible that it should
in the place in which it is not ; therefore, there is
ling as motion at all.
ilso denied the existence of all learning. If, said
thing is taught, then either that which does exist is
n its existence or that which does not exist is taught
on-existence ; but that which does exist is not taught
xistence (for the nature of all existent things is visible
men, and is known by all men) ; nor is that which does
ist, taught in its non-existence, for nothing can happen .
at which does not exist, so that to be taught cannot
en to it
or again, say they, is there any such thing as production.
* that which is, is not produced, for it exists already ; nor
t which 13 not, for that does not exist at all. And that
lich has no being nor existence at all, cannot be produced.
Another of their doctrines is, that there is no such thing as
ny natural good, or natural evil. For if there be any natural
;ood, or natural evil, then it must be good to everyone, or evil
0 everyone ; just as snow is cold to everyone. But there is
0 such thing as one general good or e^^' — ^— »• — ^'^mmon to
1 beings ; therefore, there is no suc^ natural
)od, or natural evil. For either onr eveiy-
£ E
418 LIVES OF EMINENT FHILOSOPHEBa.
thing good vhicli is thought so hy anyone whatever, or one
must say that it does not follow that everything which is
thought good is good. Now, we cannot say that eveiything
which is thought good is good, since the same thing is thought
good hy one person (as, for instance, pleasure is thought good
by Epicurus) and evil by another (as it is thought evil by
Antisthenes) ; and on this principle the same thing will be
both good and evil. If, again, we assert that it does not follow
that everything which is thought good is good, then we must
distinguish between the different opinions; which it is not
possible to do by reason of the equality of the reasons adduced
in support of them. It follows that we cannot recognize any-
thing as good by nature.
And we may also take a view of the whole of their system
by the writings which some of them have left behind them.
Pyrrho himself has left nothing ; but his friends Timon, and
^nesidemus, and Numenius, and Nausiphanes, and others of
that class have left books. And the dogmatical philosophers
arguing against them, say that they also adopt spurious and
pronounce positive dogmas. For where they think that they
are refuting others they are convicted, for in the very act of
refiitation, they assert positively and dogmatize. For when
they say that they define nothing, and that every argument
has an opposite argument ; they do here give a positive defi-
nition, and assert a possitive dogma. But they reply to these
objectors ; as to the things which happen to us as men, we
admit the truth of what you say ; for we certainly do know
that it is day, and that we are alive ; and we admit that we
know many other of the phaenomena of life. But with respect
to those things as to which the dogmatic philosophers make
positive assertions, saying that they are comprehended, we
suspend our judgment on the ground of their being uncertain ;
and we know nothing but the passions ; for we confess that we
see, and we are aware that we comprehend that such a thing
is the fact ; but we do not know how we see, or how we com-
prehend. Also, we state in the way of narrative, that this
appears white, without asserting possitively that it really is so.
And with respect to the assertion^ " We define nothing,*' and
* other sentences of that sort, we do not pronounce them as
dogmas. For to say that is a difierent kind of statement from
PYBRHO. 419
saying that the D?orld is spherical ; for the one fact is not
evident, while the other statements are mere admissions.
While, therefore, we say that we define nothing, we do
not even say that as a definition.
Again, the dogmatic philosophers say that the Sceptics over- '
throw all life, when they deny everything of which life consists.
But the Sceptics say that they are mistaken ; for they do not
deny that they see, hut that they do not knoyr how it is that
they see. For, say they, we assert what is actually the fact,
but we do not descrihe its character. Again, we feel that fire
bums, but we suspend our judgment as to. whether it has a
burning nature. Also, we see whether a person moves, and
that a man dies ; hut how. these things happen we know not.
Therefore, say they, we only resist tie uncertain deductions
which are put by the side of evident facts. For when we say
that an image has projections, we only state plainly what is
evident ; but when we say that it has not projections, we no
longer say what appears evident, but something else. On which
account Timon, in his Python, says that Pyrrho does not
destroy the authority of custom. And in his Images he speaks
thus: —
But what IB evidently seen prevails,
Wherever it may be.
And in his treatise on the Senses, he says, *' The reason why
a thing is sweet I do not declare, but I confess that the fact
of sweetness is evident." So too, ^nesidemus, in the first book
of his Pyrrhonean Discourses, says that Pyrrho defines nothing
dogmatically, on account of the possibiHty of contradiction,
but that he is guided by what is evident. And he says the
same thing in his book against Wisdom, and in his treatise
on Investigation.
In like manner, Zeuxis, a friend of uiEnesidemus, in his
treatise on Twofold Arguments, and Antiochus, of Laodicea,
and Apellas, in his Agrippa, all declare nothing beyond what
is evident. The criterion therefore, among the Sceptics, is
that which is evident; as ^^nesidemus also says ; and Epicurus
says the same thing.
But Democritus says, that there is ho test whatever of
appearances, and also tbat they are not criteria of truth. More-
over, the dogmatic philosophers attack the criterion derived
E E 2
4^0 LIVES OF EMINEirr PHILOSOPHEBS.
from appearances, and say that the same objects present at
times different appearances; so that a town presents at one
time a square, and at another a round appearance ; and that
consequently, if the Sceptic does not discriminate between
different appearances, he does nothing at all. If, on the
contrary, he determines in favour of either, then, say they, he
no longer attaches equal value to all appearances. The Sceptics
reply to this, that in the presence of different appearances,
they content themselves with saying that there are many
appearances, and that it is precisely because things present
themselves under different characters, that they affirm the
existence of appearances.
Lastly, the Sceptics say, that the chief good is the suspen-
sion of the judgment which tranquillity of mind follows, like
its shadow, as Timon and -ZEnesidemus say ; for that we need
not choose these things, or avoid those, which all depend on
ourselves : but as to those things which do not depend upon
us, but upon necessity, such as hunger, thirst, and pain, those
we cannot avoid ; for it is not possible to put an end to them
by reason.
But when the dogmatic philosophers object that the Sceptic,
on his principles, will not refuse to kill his own father, if he
is ordered to do so ; so that they answer, that they can live
very well without disquieting themselves about the specula-
tions of the dogmatic philosophers; but, suspending their
judgment in all matters which do not refer to living and the
preservation of life. Accordingly, say they, we avoid some
things, and we seek others, following custom in that ; and we
obey the laws.
Some authors have asserted, that the chief good of the
Stoics is impassibility; others say that it is mildness and
tranquillity.
LIFE OF TIMON.
I. Apollonides, of Nic8Ba, a philosopher of our school, in
the first book of his Commentaries on the Silli, which he
dedicated to Tiberius Csesar, saya that Timon was the son of
TIHON. 421
Timaxcbus» and a Phliasian by birth. And then, when he
was young, he studied dancing, and afterwards he renounced
that study, and went to Megara to Stilpo. And having spent
some time there, he returned home again and married. Then
he came with his wife to Elis, to see Pyrrho, and there he
remained while his children were bom ; the elder of whom,
he called Xanthus, and taught him medicine, and left him his
successor in his sect of philosophy. And he was a man of
considerable eminence, as Sotion tells us in his eleventh book.
Afterwards, being in difficulty as to his means, he departed
to the Hellespont and the Propontis; and living at Chalcedon
as a Sophist, he earned a very high reputation , and great
popularity ; from thence he departed, after having made a con-
siderable fortune, and went to Athens, and remained there till
his death, going across once for a short time to Thebes. He
was also acquainted with king Antigonus, and with Ptolemy
Philadelphus, as he himself testifies in his Iambics.
II. He was, says Antigonus, fond of drinking, and he at
times occupied himself with works quite inconsistent with
philosophy ; for he wrote lyric and epic poems, and tragedies
and satiric dramas, and thirty comedies, and sixty tragedies and
Silli, and amatory poems.
There are works of his also enumerated in a regular
catalogue, extending to twenty thousand verses, which are
mentioned by Antigonus, of Oarystos, who also wrote his life.
Of the Silli, there are three volumes ; in which he attacks
every one as if he were a Sceptic, and especially he lampoons
the dogmatic philosophers under the form of parodies. ' The
first volume of these SUli contain a long uninterrupted nar-
ration ; but the second and third are in the form of dialogues.
He is represented in them, as interrogating Xenophanes, the
Colophonian, about every thing, and he utters a long con-
tinued discourse ; in his second book he speaks of the more
ancient philosophers ; and in his third of the more modem
ones ; on which account some people have given the last
book the name of the epilogue.
But the first book contains the same subjects, with this dif-
ference, that in that it is all confined to one single person ;
and its first line begins thus :—
Come hither, all you over-busy Sophista.
422 LITES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHEBS.
III. He died when he -was nearly ninety years old, as
Antigonus tells us ; and Sotion, in his eleventh book, makes
the same statement. I have heard it said that he had only
one eye, and, indeed, he used to call himself Cyclops.
IV. There was also another Timon, the misanthrope.
V. Now this philosopher was very fond of a garden, and
also of solitude, as we are told by Antigonus. Accordingly it
is reported, that Hieronymuli, the Peripatetic, said of him, as
among tHe Scythians, both they who fly, and they who pursue
shoot with the bow, so in the case of the philosophers, those
who pursue and those who fly both hunt for pupils, as Timon
for instance.
VI. He was a man of veiy acute perceptions, and very
quick at seeing the ridiculous side of any question : he was also
very fond of learning, and a very clever man at devising plots
for poets, and at composing dramas. And he used to associate
with himself, in the composition of his tragedies, two oth^r
poets, named Alexander and Homer ; and whenever he was
disturbed by his maid-servants or by the dogs, he paid no
attention to them, studying above all things to live in tran-
quillity. They tell a story, that Aratus asked him how he
could procure an entire and correct copy of Homer's poetry,
and he answered, '* If he could fall in with an old manuscript
which had never been corrected." And all his works used to
lie about at random, and at times half eaten by mice ; so
that once when he was reading them' to Zopyrus, the orator,
and unrolling a volume, he read whatever passages came first,
and when he got to the middle of the book he found a great
gap, which he had not previously perceived, so very indifierent
was he about such matters.
His constitution was so vigorous, that he could easily go
without his dinner. And they say, that once when he saw
Arcesilaus passing through the forum of the Cercipes, he said,
"What are you doing here, where we freemen are?" And
he used constantly to quote to those who invoked the testi-
mony of their intellects to judge of the senses : —
Attagas and Numenius are met.*
And this jesting manner was habitual with him. Accord-
* That is to say, the harmony between intellect and the senses will
not last long. Attagas and Numeninswere two notorious brigands.
TIMON. 423
ingly he once said to a man, who was surprised at everytliing,
** Why do yoQ not wonder that we three men have only four
eyes between us ? " for he himself had only one eye, no more
had Dioscorides, his pupil ; but the man to whom he was
speaking had his sight unimpaired. On another occasion, he
was asked by Arcesilaus, why he had come from Thebes, and
he said, " To laugh at you all when I see you face to face."
But though he attacked Arcesilaus in his Silli, he has praised
him in the book entitled the Funeral Banquet of Arcesilaus.
VII. He had no successor, as Menodotus tells us ; but his
school ceased, till Ptolemy the Cyrenean re-established it.
According to the account given to us by Hippobotus and
Sotion, he had as pupils, Dioscorides of Cyprus, and Nilolo-
chus of Rhodes, and Euphranor of Seleucia, and Pracylus
of the Troas, who was a man of such constancy of mind that,
as Phylarchus relates in his History, he allowed himself to be
punished as a traitor wholly undeservedly, not uttering one
word of complfidnt against his fellow citizens'; and Euphranor
had for his pupil, Eubulus, of Alexandria, who was the
master of Ptolemy, who wfts the master of Sarpedon and
Heraclides. And Heraclides was the master of ^nesidemus,
of Cnossus, who wrote eight books of Pyrrhonean discourses ;
he was also the master of Xeuxippus Polites, who was the
master of Zeuxis Gonicpus, who was the master of Antiochus,
of Laodicea, in Lycia. Antiochus again, was the master of
Menodotus, of Nicomedia, a skilful physician, and of Theodos,
of Laodicea ; and Menodotus was the master of Herodotus, of
Tarsus, the son of Arieus ; Herodotus was the master of Sex- ^
tus Empiricus, who left ten books of Sceptic Maxims, and other
excellent works; and Sextus was the master of Satuminus
Cythenas, who was also an empiric.
424
BOOK X
LIFE OF EPICUKUS.
I. Eptcubus was an Athenian, and the son of Neocles and
ChsBrestrate, of the burgh of Gargettus, and of the family of
the PhilaidsB, as Metrodorus tells us in his treatise on Nobility
of Birth. Some writers, and among them Heraclides, in his
Abridgment of Sotion, say, that as the Athenians had Golonis
and Samos, he was brought up there, and came to Athens in
his eighteenth year, while Xenocrates was president of the
Academy, and Aristotle at Ohalcis. But after the death of
Alexander, the Macedonian, when the Athenians were driven
out of Samos by Perdiccas, Epicurus went to Colophon to
his father.
II. And when he had spent some time there, and collected
some disciples, he again returned to Athens, in the time of
Anax^crates, and for some time studied philosophy, mingling
with the rest of the philosophers ; but subsequently, he some
how or other established the school which was called after his
name ; and he used to say, that he began to study philosophy,
when he was fourteen years of age ; but Apollodorus, the
.Epicurean, in the first book of his account of the life of
Epicurus, says, that he came to the study of philosophy,
having conceived a great contempt for the grammarians,
because they could not explain to him the statements in
Hesiod respecting Chaos.
But Hermippus tells us, that he himself was a teacher of
grammar, and that afterwards, having met with the books of
Democritus, he applied himself with zeal to philosophy, on
which account Timon says of him : —
The last of all the natural philosophers.
And the most shameleas too, did come from Samos,
A grammar teacher, and the most ill-bred
And most unmanageable of mankind.
And he had for his companions in his philosophical studies,
EPIC13RU& 42&
his three brothers, Neocles, ChsBredemus, and Aristobulus,
who were excited by his exhortations, as Philodemus, the
Epicurean, relates in the tenth book of the Classification of
Philosophers. He had also a slave, whose name was Inus, as
Myronianus tells ns in his Similar Historical Chapters.
III. But Diotimus, the Stoic, was yery hostile to him, and
calumniated him in a most bitter manner, publishing fifty
obscene letters, and attributing them to Epicurus, and also
giving him the credit of the letters, which generally go under
the name of Chrysippus. And Posidonius, the Stoic, and
Nicolaus, and Sotion, in the twelfth of these books, which are
entitled the Refutations of Diodes, of which there are
altogether twenty-four volumes, and Dionysius, of Halicar-
nassus, have also attacked him with great severity ; for they
say that he used to accompany his mother when she went
about the small cottages, performing purifications, and that
he used to read the formula, and that he used also to keep a
school with his father at very low terms. Also, that he, as
well as as one of his brothers, was a most profligate man in
his morals, and that he used to live with Leontium, the
courtesan. Moreover, that he claimed the books of Demo-
critus on Atoms, and that of Aristippus on Pleasure, as his
own ; and that he was not a legitimate citizen ; and this last
fact is asserted also by Timocrates, and by Herodotus, in his
treatise on the Youth of Epicurus.
They also say that he used to flatter Mithras, the steward
of Lysimachus, in a disgraceful manner, calling him in his
letters Paean, and King ; and also that he flattered Idomeneus,
and Herodotus, and Timocrates who had revealed all his secret
practices, and that he flattered them on this veiy account.
And in his letters to Leontium, he says, ** 0 king Apollo, my
dear Leontium, what transports of joy did I feel when I read
your charming letter.'' And to Themista, the wife of Leontius,
he writes, *' I am ready and prepared, if you do not come to
me, to roll myself to wherever you and Themista invite
me." And he addresses Pythocles, a beautiful youth, thus,
" I will sit quiet," says he, *' awaiting your longed for and
god-like approach." Aiid at another time, writing to Themista,
he says, *' That he had determined to make his way with her,'*
as Theodorus teUs us in the fourth book of lus treatises
against Epicurus.
426 UYBS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
He also wrot6 to many other courtesans, and especially to
Leontium, with whom Metrodorus also was in love. And in
his treatise on the Chief Good, he writes thus, " For I do not
know what J can consider good, if I put out of sight the
pleasures which arise from favours, and those which are
derived from amatory pleasures, and from music, and from the
contemplation of beauty." And in his letter to Pythocles, he
writes, " And, my dear boy, avoid all sorts of education."
Epictetus also attacks him as a most debauched man, and
reproaches him most vehemently, and so does Timocrates, the
brother of Metrodorus, in his treatise entitled the Merry
Guests, and this Timocrates had been a disciple in his school,
though he afterweCrds abandoned it ; and he says that he used
to vomit twice a day, in consequence of his intemperance ; and
that he himself had great difficulty in escaping'from this noc-
turnal philosophy, and that mystic kind of re-union. He also
accuses Epicurus of shameful ignorance in his reasoning, and
still more especially in all matters relating to the conduct of
life. And says that he was in a pitiable state of health, so
that he could not for many years rise up from his sofa ; and
that he used to spend a minsB a day on his eating, as he
himself states in his letter to Leontium, and in that to the
philosophers at Mitylene. He also says that many courtesans
used to live with him and Metrodorus ; and among them
Marmaricem, and Hedea, and Erotium, and Nicidium.
IV. And in the thirtv-seven books which he wrote about
natural philosophy, they say that he says a great many things
of the same kind over and over again, and that in them he
writes in contradiction of other philosophers, and especially of
Nausiphanes, and speaks as follows, word for word : " But if
any one else ever was afflicted in such a manner, then certainly
this man had a continual labour, striving to bring forth the
sophistical boastfulness of his mouth, like many other slaves."
And Epicurus also speaks of Nausiphanes in his letters, in the
following terms : ** These things led him on to such arrogance
of mind, that he abused me and called me a schoolmaster.**
He used also to call him Lungs, and Blockhead, and Humbug,
and Fornicator. And he used to call Plato's followers Flat-
terers of Dionysius, but Plato himself he called Golden.
Aristotle he called a debauchee and a glutton, saying that he
joined the army after he had squandered his patrimony, and
EPICURUS. 497
sold drugs. He used also to call Protagoras a porter, and the
secretary of Democritus, and to say that he taught boys their
letters in the streets. Heraclitus, he called a disturber ; Demo-
critus, he nicnamed Lerocrates ;* and Antidorus, Ssenidorus ;t
The Cynics he called enemies of Greece ; and the Dialecticians
he charged with being eaten up with envy. Pyrrho, he said,
was ignorant and unlearned.
y. But these men who say this ar)9 all wrong, for there are
plenty of witnesses of the unsurpassable kindness of the man
to every body ; both hie own countiy which honoured him with
brazen statues, and his friend who were so numerous that they
could not be contained in whole cities ; and all his acquaint-
ances who were bound to him by nothing but the charms of his
doctrine, none of whom ever deserted him, except Metrodo-
rus, the son of Stratoniceus, who went over to Cameades,
probably because he was not able to bear with equanimity the
unapproachable excellence of Epicurus. Also, the perpetual
succession of his school, which, when every other school decayed,
continued without any falling off, and produced a countless
number of philosophers, succeeding one anotner without any
interruption. We may also speak here of his gratitude towards
his parents, and his beneficence to his brothers, and his
gentleness to his servants (as is plain from his will, and from
the fact too, that they united with him in his philosophical
studies, and the most eminent of them was the one whom i
have mentioned already, named Inus) ; and his universal
philanthropy towards all men.
His piety towards the Gods, and his affection for his country
was quite unspeakable ; though, fix)m an excess of modesty, he
avoided affidrs of state. Ajud though he lived when very
difficult times oppressed Greece, he still remained in his
own country, only going two or three times across to Ionia
to see his friends, who used to throng to him from all quarters,
and to live with him in his garden, as we are told by Apol-
lodorus, (This garden he bought for eighty rainae.)
.VI. And Diodes, in the third book of his Excursion, says
* That is "trifler," from cpivw, to judge; and X^poc, nonseiiBical
talk.
t That is, flattering for gifts ; from aalvia, to wag the tail as a dog,
to caress ; and dwpov, a gift.
428 IIYES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHER&
that they all lived in the most simple and ecoDomical maimer ;
*' They were content,** says he, *' with a small cup of light
wine, and all the rest of their drink was water." He also
tells us that Epicurus would not allow his followers to throw
their property into a common stock, aa Pythagoras did, who
said that the possessions of friends were held in common.
For he said tluit such a doctrine as that was suited rather
for those who distrusted one another; and that those who
distrusted one another were not friends. But he himself
in his letters, says that he is content with water and plain
bread, and adds, ''Send me some Cytherean cheese, that if I
wish to have a feast, I may have the means.'* This was the
real character of the man who laid down the doctrine that
pleasure was the chief good ; whom Athenseus thus mentions
in an epigram:—
O men, you labour for pernicious ends ;
And out of eager avarice, begin
Quarrels and wars. And yet the wealth of nature
Fixes a narrow limit for desires, ^
Though empty judgment is insatiable.
This lesson the wise child of Keocles
Had learnt by heart, instructed by the Muses,
Or at the a&cted shrine of Delphi's Qod.
And as we advance further, we shall learn this fact from his
dogmas, and his apophthegms.
VII. Of all the ancient philosophers he was, as we are told
by Diodes, most attached to Anaxagoras (although in some
points he argued against him) ; and to Archelaus, the master
of Socrates. And he used, Diocles adds, to accustom his pupils
to preserve his writings in their memory. Apollodorus, in his
Chronicles, asserts that he was a pupil of Nausiphanes, and
Praxiphanes ; but he himself does not mention this ; but says
in his letter to Euridicus, that he had been his own instructor.
He also agreed with Hermarchus in not admitting that
Leucippus deserved to be called a philosopher ; though some
authors, among whom his Apollodorus, speak of him as the
master of Democritus. Demetrius, the Magnesian, says that
he was a pupil of Xenocrates also.
VXII. He uses in his works plain language with respect to
anything he is speaking of, for which Aristophanes, the gram-
marian, blames him, on the ground of that style being vulgar.
EPIC0KUS. 429
But he was such an admirer of perspicuity, that even in higi
treatise on Ehetoric, he aims at and recommends nothing hut
clearness of expression. And in his letters, instead of the
usual civil expressions, " Greeting," " Farewell," and so on,
he substitutes, " May you act well," "May you live virtuously,'*
and expressions of that sort. Some of his biographers assert
that it was he who composed the treatise entifled the Canon,
in imitation of the Tripod of Nausiphanes, whose pupil they
say that he was, and add that he was also a pupil of Pamphilus,
the Platonist, at Samos.
IX. They further tell us that he began to study philosophy
at twelve years of age, and that he presided over his school
thirty-two years. And he was bom as we are told by Apollo-
dorus, in his Chronicles, in the third year of the hundred and
ninth olympiad, in the archonship of Sosigenes, on the seventh
day of the month Gamelion, seven years after the death of
Plato. And when he was thirty-two years of age, he first set
up his school at Mitylene, and after that at Lampsacus ; and
when he had spent five years in these two cities, he came to
Athens ; and he died there in the second year of the hundred
and twenty-seventh olympiad, in the archonship of Pytharatus,
when he had lived seventy-two years. And Hermarchus, the
son of Agemarchus, and a citizen of Mitylene, succeeded him
in his school.
He died of the stone, as Hermarchus mentions in his letters,
after having been ill a fortnight ; and at the end of the fort-
night, Hermippus says that he went into a brazen bath,
properly tempered with warm water, aud asked for a cup of
pure wine and drank it ; and having recommended his friends
to remember his doctrines, he expired. And there is an
epigram of ours on him, couched in the following language : —
Now, fare-ye-well, remember all my words ;
This was ilie dying charge of Epicurus :
Then to the bath he went, and drank some wine.
And sank beneath the cold embrace of Pluto.
Such was the life of the man, and such was his death.
X. And he made his wDl in the following terms :-*-
** According to this my will, I give all my possessions to
Amynomachus, of Bate, the son of Philocrates, and to Timo-
crates, of Potamos, the son of Demetrius; according to the
.430 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHEBS.
deed of gift to each, which is deposited in the temple of
Gjbele ; on condition that they make over my garden and all
that is attached to it to Hermarchus, of Mitylene, the son of
Agemarchus ; and to those who study philosophy with him,
and to whomsoever Hermarchus leaves as his successors in his
school, that they may abide and dwell in it, in the study and
practice of philosophy ; and I give it also to all those who
philosophize according to my doctrines, that they may, to the
best of their ability, maintain my school which exists in my
garden, in concert with Amynomachus and Timocrates ; and
I enjoin their heirs to do the same in the most perfect and
secure manner that they can ; so that they also may maintain
my garden, as those also shall to whom my immediate suces-
sors hand it down. As for the house in Melita, that Amyno-
machus and Timocrates shall allow Hermarchus that he may
live in it during his life, together with all his companions in
philosophy.
'' Out of the income which is derived from that property,
which is here bequeathed by me to Amynomachus and Timo-
crates, I will that they, consulting with Hermarchus, shall
arrange in the best manner possible the offerings to the manes
in honour of the memory of my father, and mother, and
brothers, and myself, and that my birth-day may be kept as it
has been in the habit of being kept, on the tenth day of the
month Gamelion ; and that the re-union of all the philosophers
of our school, established in honour of Metrodorus and myself^
may take place on the twentieth day of every month. They
shall also celebrate, as I have been in the habit of doing
myself, the day consecrated to my brothers, in the month
iPoseideon; and the day consecrated to the memory of
Polysenus, in the month Metageitnion.
" Amynomachus and Timocrates, shall be the guardians of
Epicurus, the son of Metrodorus, and of the son of Polysenus,
as long as they study philosophy under, and live with,*Hermar-
chus. In the same way also, they shall be the guardians of
the daughter of Metrodorus, and when she is of marriageable
age, they shall give her to whomsoever HfBrmarchus shall select
of his companions in philosophy, provided she is well behaved
and obedient to Hermarchus. And Amynomachus and Timo-
crates shall, out of my income, give them such a sum for their
support as shall- appear sufficient year by year, after due
EPICURUS. 431
consultation with Hermarchus. And they shall associate
Hermarchus , with themselves in the management of my
revenues, in order that everything may be done with the
approval of that man who has grown old with me in the study
of philosophy, and who is now left as the president of all those
who have studied philosophy with us. And as for the dowry
for the girl when she is come to marriageable age, let Amyno-
machus and Timocrates arrange that, taking for the purpose
such a sum from my property as shall seem to them, in con-
junction with Hermarchus, to be reasonable. And let them
also take care of Nicanor, as we ourselves have done ; in order
that all those who have studied. philosophy with us, and who
have assisted us with their means, and who have shown great
friendship for us, and who have chosen to grow old vdth us in
the study of philosophy, may never be in want of anything as
fax as our power to prevent it may extend.
" I further enjoin them to give all my books to Hermarchus ;
and, if anything should happen to Hermarchus before the
children of Metrodorus are grown up, then I desire that
Amynomachus and Timocrates, shall take care that, provided
they are well behaved, they shall have everything that is
necessary for them, as far as the estate which I leave behind
me shall allow such things to be furnished to them. And the
same men shall also take care of everything else that I have
enjoined ; so that it may all be fulfilled, as far as the case may
permit.
** Of my slaves, I hereby emancipate Inus, and Nicias, and
Lycon : I also give Phrodrium her freedom."
And when he was at the point of death, he wrote the
following letter to Idomeneus : —
" We have written this letter to you on a happy day to us,
which is also the last day of our life. For strangury has
attacked me, and also a dysentery, so violent that nothing
can be added to the violence of my sufferings. But the
cheerfulness of my mind, which arises from the recollection of
all my philosophical contemplations, counterbalances all these
afflictions. And I beg you to take care of the children of
Metrodorus, in a manner worthy of the devotion shown by the
youth to me, and to philosophy."
Such then as I have given it, was his will.
XI. He had a great number of pupils, of whom the most
482 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
eminent were Metrodoras, the Athenian, and Timocrates, and
Sandes, of Lampsacus ; who, from the time that he first became
acquainted with him, never left him. except once when he went
home for six months ; after which he returned to him. And
he was a virtuous man in every respect, as Epicurus tells us in
his Fundamental Principles. And he also bears witness to
Ms virtue in the third book of his Timocrates. And being a
man of this character, he gave his sister Bates in marriage to
Idomeneus ; and he himself had Leontium, the Attic courtesan,
for his concubine. ■ He was very unmoved at all disturbances,
and even at death ; as Epicurus tells us, in the first book of
his Metrodorus. He is said to have died seven years before
Epicurus himself, in the fifty-third year of his age. And
Epicurus himself, in the will which I have given above, gives
many charges about the guardianship of his children, showing
by this that he had been dead some time. He also had a
brother whom I have mentioned before, of the name of Timo-
crates, a trifling, silly man.
The writings of Metrodorus are these. Three bboks addressed
to the Physicians ; one essay on the Sensations ; one addressed
to Timocrates ; one on Magnanimity ; one on the Illness of
Epicurus ; one addressed to the Dialecticians ; one against the
Nine Sophists ; one on the Eoad to Wisdom ; one on Change ;
one on Riches ; one against Democritus ; one on Nobility of
Birth.
XII. Likewise Polysenus, of Lampsacus, the son of Atheno-
dorus, was a man of mild and friendly manners, as Philodemus
particularly assures us.
XIII. And his successor was Hermarchus, of Mitylene, the
son of Agemarchus, a poor man ; and his favourite pursuit was
rhetoric. And the following excellent works of his are extant.
Twenty-two books of letters about Empedocles ; an essay on
Mathematics ; A treatise against Plato ; another c^ainst
Aristotle. And he died of paralysis, being a most eminent
man.
XIV. There was also Leontius, of Lampsacus, and his wife
Themista, to whom Epicurus wrote.
XV. There were also Colotes and Idomeneus ; and these
also were natives of Lampsacus. And among the most eminent
philosophers of the school of Epicurus, were Polystratus, who
' succeeded Hermarchus, and Dionysius who succeeded him, and
EPICURUS. 43B
Basilides who succeeded him. Likewise ApoUodorus, who was
nicknamed the tyrant of the gardens^x^j^orugavvo^), was a very
eminent man, and wrote more than four hundred hooks. And
there were the two Ptolemies of Alexandria, Ptolemy the
Black, and Ptolemy the Fair. And Zeno, of Sidon, a pupil
of ApoUodorus, a very voluminous author ; and i Demetrius,
who was sumamed the Lacedsemonian ; and Diogenes, of
Tarsus, who wrote the Select Dialogues; and Orion, and
others whom the genuine Epicureans call Sophists.
XVI. There were also three other persons of the name of
Epicurus ; first, the son of Leonteus and Themista ; secondly,
a native of Magnesia ; and lastly, a Gladiator.
XYII. And Epicurus was a most voluminous author, .
exceeding all men in the numher of his hooks ; for there are
more than three hundred volumes of them ; and in the whole
of them there is not one citation from other sources, hut they
are filled wholly with the sentiments of Epicurus himself. In
the quantity of his writings he was rivalled hy Chrysippus, as
Cameades asserts, who calls him a parasite of the hooks of
Epicurus ; for if ever this latter wrote anything, Chrysippus
immediately set his heart on writing a hook of equal size ; and
in this way he often wrote the same thing over again ; putting
down whatever came into his head ; and he published it all
without any corrections, by reason of his haste. And he quotes
such numbers of testimonies from other authors, that his
books are entirely filled with them alone ; as one may find
also in the works of Aristotle and Zeno.
Such then, and so numerous are the works of Epicurus;
the chief of which are the following. Thirty-seven treatises
on Natural Philosophy ; one on Atoms, and the Vacuum ;
one on Love; an abridgment of the Arguments employed
against the Natural Philosophers ; Doubts in Contradiction of
the Doctrines of the Megarians ; Fundamental Propositions ;
a treatise on Choice and Avoidance ; another on the Chief
Good; another on the Criterion, called also the Canon;
the Chaeridemus, a treatise on the Gods ; one on Piety ;
the Hegesiana ; four essays on Lives ; one on Just Dealing ;
the Neocles ; one essay addressed to Themista ; the Banquet ;
A« Eurylochus ; one essay addressed to Meti'odorus ; one
on Seeing ; one on the Angle in an Atom ; one on Touch ;
434 LIVES OF EMINENT FHIL080PHEBS.
one on Fate; Opinions on the Passions; one treatise
addressed to Timocrates ; Prognostics ; Exhortations ; a
treatise on Spectres ; one on Perceptions ; the Aristobulus ;
an essay on Music ; one on Justice and the other Virtues ;
one on Gifts and Gratitude ; the Polymedes ; the Timocrates,
a treatise in three books; the Metrodorus, in five books;
the Antidorus, in two books; Opinions about the South
Winds ; a treatise' addressed to Mithras ; the Oallistolas ;
an essay on Kingly Power ; the Anaximenes ; Letters.
XVIII. And I will endeavour to give an abridgment of
the doctrines contained in these works, as it may be agreeable,
quoting three letters of his, in which he has made a sort of
epitome of all his philosophy. I will also give his fundamental
and peculiar opinions, and any apophthegms which he uttered
which appear worthy of being selected. So that you may be
thoroughly acquainted with the man, and may also judge that
I understand him.
Now the first letter is one that he wrote to Herodotus, on
the subject of Natural Philosophy ; the second is one that he
wrote to Pythocles, which is about the Heavenly Bodies ; the
third is addressed to MensBceus, and in that there are contained
the discussions about lives.
We must now begin with the first, after having said a little
by way of prefiEtce concerning the divisions of philosophy which
he adopted.
XIX. Now he divides philosophy into three parts. The
canonical, the physical, and the ethical. The canonical, which
serves as au introduction to science, is contained in the single
treatise which is called the Canon. The physical embraces
the whole range of speculation on subjects of natural philoso-
phy, and is contained in the thirty-seven books on nature,
and in the letters again it is discussed in an elementary manner.
The ethical contains the discussions on Choice and Avoidance ;
and is comprised in the books about lives, and in some of the
Letters, and in the treatise on the Chief Good. Accordingly,
most people are in the habit of combining the canonical divi-
sion with the physical ; and then they designate the whole
under the names of the criterion of the truth, and a discussion
an principles, and elements. And they say that the physical
division is conversant about production, and destruction, and
EPICURUS. 435
nature; and that the ethical division has reference to the
objects of choice and avoidance, and lives, and the chief good
of mankind.
XX. Dialectics they wholly reject as superfluous. For they
say that the correspondence of words with things is sufficient
for the natural philosopher, so as to enable him to advance
with certainty in the study of nature.
Now, in the Canon, Epicurus says that the criteria of truth
are the senses, and the preconceptions, and the passions. But
tlie Epicureans, in general, add also the perceptive impressions
of the intellect. And he says the same thing in his Abridg-
ment, which he addresses to Herodotus, and also in his Funda-
mental Principles. For, says he, the senses are devoid of
reason, nor are they capable of receiving any impressions of
memory. For they are not by themselves the cause of any
motion, and when they have received any impression from any
external cause, then they can add nothing to it, nor can they
subtract anything from it. Moreover, ^ey are out of the
reach of any control ; for one sensation cannot judge of another
which resembles itself; for they have all an equal value. Nor
csan one judge of another which is different from itself; since
their objects are not identical. In a word, one sensation
cannot control another, since the effects of all of them influence
us equally. Again, the reason cannot pronounce on the senses ;
for we have already said that all reasoning has the senses for
its foundation. Reality and the evidence of sensation establish
the certainty of the senses ; for the impressions of sight and
hearing are just as real, just as evident, as pain.
It follows from these considerations that we ought to judge
of things which are obscure by their analogy to those which
we perceive directly. In fact, every notion proceeds from the
senses, either directly, or in consequence of some analogy, or
proportion, or combination. Reasoning having always a share
in fliese last operations. The visions of insanity and of sleep
have a real object, for they act upon us; and that which
has no reality can produce no action.
XXI. By preconception, the Epicureans mean a sort of
comprehension as it were, or right opinion, or notion, or general
idea which exists in us ; or, in other words, the recollection
of an external object often perceived anteriorly. Such for
instance, is this idea : *' Man is a being of such and such a
F F 2
436 LIVES OF ElflNENT PHILOSOPHEBS.
nature." At the same moment that we utter the word man,
we conceive the figure of a man, in virtue of a preconception
which we owe to the preceding operations of the senses.
Therefore, the first notion which each word awakens in us is
a correct one ; in fact, we could not seek for anything if we
had not previously some notion of it. To enahle us to afl&rm
that what we see at a distance is a horse or an ox, we must
have some preconception in our minds which makes us ac-
quainted with the form of a horse and an ox. We could not
give names to things, if we had not a preliminary notion of
what the things were.
XXII. These preconceptions then furnish us with certainty.
And with respect to judgments, their certainty depends on
our referring them to some previous notion, of itself certain,
in virtue of which we affirm such and such a judgment ; for
instance, " How do we know whether this thing is a man ?^
The Epicureans call opinion (d^^a) also supposition (iwr^Xfj^j/zc).
And say that it is at times true, and at times false ; for that,
if it is supported by testimony, and not contradicted by testi-
mony, then it is true ; but if it is not supported by testimony,
and is contradicted by testimony, then it is false. On which
account they have introduced the expression of ** waiting," as if,
before pronouncing that a thing seen is a tower, we must wait
till we come near, and learn what it looks like when we are
near it.
XXIII. They say that there are two passions, pleasure and
pain, which affect everything alive. And that the one is
natural, and the other foreign to our nature ; with reference to
which all objects of choice and avoidance are judged of. They
say also, that there are two kinds of investigation ; the one
about facts, the other about mere words. And this is as far as
an elementary sketch can go — their doctrine about division,
and about the criterion.
XXIV. Let us now go to the letter : —
EPICURUS TO HERODOTUS, WISHING HE MAT DO WELL.
'* For those, 0 Herodotus, who are not able accurately to
comprehend all the things which I have written about nature^
nor to investigate those larger books which I have composed on
the subject, I have made an abridgment of the whole discus-
BPICUBUS. 4&7
Bion on this question, as far as I thought sufficient to enable
them to recollect accurately the most fundamental points ;
that so, on all grave occasions, thej might be able to assist
themselves on the most important and undeniable principles ;
in proportion as they devoted themselves to speculations on
natural philosophy. And, here it is necessary for those v^ho
have made sufficient progress in their view of the general
question, to recollect the principles laid down as elements of
the whole discussion ; for we have still greater need of a correct
notion of the whole, than we haye even of an accurate under
standing of the details. We must, therefore, give preference
to the former knowledge, and lay up in our memory those
principles on which we may rest, in order to arrire at an
exact perception of things, and at a certain knowledge of
particular objects.
'' Now one has arrived at that point when one has thoroughly
embraced the conceptions, and, if I may so express myself,
the most essential forms, and when one has impressed them
adequately on one*s senses. For this clear and precise know-
ledge of the whole, taken together, necessarily facilitates one's
particular perceptions, when one has brought one's ideas back
to the elements and simple terms. In short, a veritable
synthesis, comprising the entire circle of the phasnomena of
the universe, ought to be able to resume in itself, and in a few
words, all the particular facts which have been previously
studied. This method being useful even to those who are
already familiarised with the laws ,of the universe, I recom-
mend them, while still pursuing vdthout intermission the
study of nature, which contributes more than anything else to
the tranquillity and happiness of life, to make a concise state-
mentoAumrLy of & opinions.
" First of all, then, Herodotus, one must determine with
exactness the notion comprehended under each separate word,
in order to be able to refer to it, as to a certain criterion, the
oonceptions which emanate from ourselves, the ulterior re-
searches and the difficulties ; otherwise the judgment has no
foundation. One goes on from demonstration to demonstration
ad infinitum ; or else one gains nothing beyond mere words.
In fact, it is absolutely necessary that in every word we should'
perceive directly, and without the assistance of any demonstra-
tion, the fundamental notion which it expresses^ if we wish to
438 LIVES OF EBONEKT PHILOSOPHERS.
have any foundation to which we may refer our researches, our
difficulties, and our personal judgments, whatever in other
respects may be the criterion which we adopt, whether we take
as our standard the impressions produced on our senses, or
the actual impression in general ; or whether we cling to the
idea by itself, or to any other criterion.
*' We must also note carefully the impressions which we
receive in the presence of objects, in order to bring ourselves
back to that point in the circumstances in which it is ne-
cessary to suspend the judgment, or even when the question
is about things, the evidence of which is not immediately per-
ceived.
" When these foundations are once laid we may pass to the
study of those things, the evidence of which is not immediate.
And, first of all, we must admit that nothing can come of that
which does not exist ; for, were the fact otherwise, then every
thing would be produced from everything, and there would be
no need of any seed. And if that which disappeared were so
absolutely destroyed as to become non-existent, then every
thing would soon perish, as the things with which they would
be dissolved would have no existence. But, in truth, the
universal whole always was such as it now is, and always
will be such. For there is nothing into which it can change ;
for there is nothing beyond this universal whole which can
penetrate into it, and produce any change in it."
(And Epicurus establishes the same principles at the
beginning of the great Abridgment ; and in the first book
of his treatise on Nature.)* " Now the universal whole is a
body ; for our senses bear us witness in every case that bodies
have a real existence ; and the evidence of the senses, as I
have said before, ought to be the rule of our reasonings about
everything which is not directly perceived. Otherwise, if that
which we call the vacuum, or space, or intangible nature, had
not a real existence, there would be nothing on which the
bodies could be contained, or across which they could move, as
we see that they really do move. Let us add to this reflection
that one cannot conceive, either in virtue of perception, or of
any analogy founded on perception, any general quality pe-
* This sentence is a remark'of Diogenes himself. ' There are several
more of his observations in parentheses as we proceed.
EPICURUS. 439
cuHar to all beings which is not either an attribute, or an
accident of the body, or of the vacuum."
(The same principles are laid down in the first, and four-
teenth, and fifteenth book of the treatise on Nature ; and also
in the Great Abridgment.)
*' Now, of bodies, some are combinations, and some the
dements out of which these combinations are formed. These
last are indivisible, and protected from every kind of trans-
formation ; otherwise everything would be resolved into non-
existence. They exist by their own force, in the midst of the
dissolution of the combined bodies, being absolutely full, and
as such offering no handle for destruction to take hold of. It
follows, therefore, as a matter of absolute necessity, that the
principles of things must be corporeal, indivisible elements.
" The universe is infinite. For that which is finite has an
extreme, and that which has an extreme is looked at in relation
to something else. Consequently, that which has not an
extreme, has no boundary ; and if it has no boundary, it must be
infinite, and not terminated by any limit. The universe then is
infinite, both with reference to the quantity of bodies of which
it is made up, and to the magnitude of the vacuum ; for if
the vacuum were infinite, the bodies being finite, then, the
bodies would not be able to rest in any place ; they would be
transported about, scattered across the infinite vacuum for
want of any power to steady themselves, or to keep one another
in their places by mutual repulsion. If, on the other hand,
the vacuum were finite, the bodies being infinite, then the
bodies clearly could never be contained in the vacuum.
"Again: the atoms which form the bodies, these full elements
from which the combined bodies come, and into which they
resolve themselves, assume an incalculable variety of forms,
for the numerous differences which the bodies present cannot
possibly result from an aggregate of the same forms. Each
variety of forms contains an iiinity of atoms, but there is not
for that reason an infinity of atoms ; it is only the number of
them which is beyond all calculation."
(Epicurus adds, a little lower down, that divisibility, ad in-
finitum, is impossible ; for, says he, the only things which
change are the qualities ; unless, indeed, one wishes to pro-
ceed from division to division, till one arrives absolutely at
infinite littleness.)
440 LIVES OF SUmENT PHILOSOPHERS.
" The atoms are in a contmual state of motion."
(He says, farther on, that they move with an equal rapidity
from all eternity, since the vacuum ofiEers no more resistance
to the lightest than it does to the heaviest.)
" Among the atoms, some are separated hy great distances,
others come very near to one another in the formation of com-
hined bodies, or at times are enveloped by others which are
combining ; but in this latter case they, nevertheless, preserve
their own peculiar motion, thanks to the nature of the vacuum,
which separates the one from the other, and yet offers them no
resistance. The solidity which they possess causes them,
while knocking against one another, to re-act the one upon
the other ; till at last the repeated shocks bring on the disso-
lution of the combined body; and for all this there is no
external cause, the atoms and the vacuum being the only
causes."
(He says, further on, that the atoms have no peculiar quality
of their own, except from magnitude and weight. As to colour,
he says in the twelfth book of his Principia, that it varies
according to the position of the atoms. Moreover, he does not
attribute to the atoms any kind of dimensions ; and, accordingly,
no atom has ever been perceived by the senses; but this
expression, if people only recollect what is here said, will by
itself offer to the thoughts a sufficient image of the nature of
things.)
" But, again, the worlds also are infinite, whether they re-
semble this one of ours or whether they are different from it
For, as the atoms are, as to their number, infinite, as I have
proved above, they necessarily move about at immense dis-
tances ; for besides, this infinite multitude of atoms, of which
the world is formed, or by which it is produced, could not be
entirely absorbed by one single world, nor even by any worlds,
the number of which was limited, whether we suppose them
like this world of ours, or different from it. There is, there-
fore, no fact inconsistent with an infinity of worlds.
" Moreover, there are images resembling, as far as their form
goes, the solid bodies which we see, but which differ materially
from them in the thinness of their substance. In fact it is not
impossible but that there may be in space some secretions of
this kind, and an aptitude to form surfaces without depth, and
of an extreme thinness; or else that from the solids there
EPICURUS. 441
' may emanate some particles which preserve the connection, the
disposition, and the motion which they had in the hody. I
give the name of images to these representations ; and, indeed,
their movement through the vacuum taking place, without
meeting any ohstacle or hindrance, perfects idl imaginahle
extent in an inconceivahle moment of. time ; for it is the
meeting of ohstacles, or the absence of obstacles, which pro-
duces the rapidity or the slowness of their motion. At all
events, a body in motion does not find itself, at any n^oment
imaginable, in two places at the same time ; that is quite
inconceivable. From whatever point of infinity it arrives at
some appreciable moment, and whatever may be the spot in
its course in which we perceive its motion, it has evidently
quitted that spot at the moment of our thought; for this
motion which, as we have admitted up to this point, encounters
no obstacle ix> its rapidity, is wholly in the same condition as
that the rapidity of which is diminished by the shock of some
resistance.
" It is useful, also, to retain this principle, and to know that
the images have an incomparable tliinness ; which fact indeed
is in no respect contradicted by sensible appearances. From
which it follows that their rapidity: also is incomparable ; for
they find everywhere an easy passage, and besides, their infinite
smallness causes them to experience no shock, or at all events
to experience but a veiy slight one, while an infinite multitude
of elements very soon encounter some resistance.
'' One must not forget that the production of images is simul-
taneous with the thought ; for from the surface of the bodies
images of this kind are contii^ually Bowing off in an insen-
sible manner indeed, because they are immediately replaced.
They preserve for a long time the same disposition, and the
same arrangement that the atoms do in the solid body,
although, notwithstanding, their form may be sometibies
altered. The direct production of images in space is equally
instantaneous, because these images are only light substances
destitute of depth.
" But there are other manners in which natures of this kind
are produced ; for there is nothing in all this which at all
contradicts the senses, if one only considers in what way the
senses are exercised, and if one is inclined to explain the'
relation which is established between external objects and
442 LIVES OP EMINENT PHILOSOPHEBS.
ourselTes. Also, one miist admit that something passes from
external objects into us in order to produce in us sight and
the knowledge of forms ; for it is difficult to conceive that
external objects can affect us through the medium of tbe air
which is between us and them, or by means of rays, whatever
emissions proceed from us to them, so as to give us an im-
pression of their form and colour. This phenomenon, on the
contrary, is perfectly explained, if we admit that certain images
of the same colour, of the same shape, and of a proportionate
magnitude pass from these objects to us, and so arrive at
being seen and comprehended. These images are animated
by an exceeding rapidity, and, as on the other side, the solid
object forming a compact mass, and comprising a vast quantity
of atoms, emits always the same quantity of particles, the
vision is continued, and only produces in us one single per-
ception which preserves always the same relation to the
object. Every conception, every sensible perception which
bears upon the form or the other attributes of these images, is
only the same form of the solid perceived directly, either in
virtue of a sort of actual and continued condensation of the
image, or in consequence of the traces which it has left in us.
'* Error and false judgments always depend upon the suppo-
sition that a preconceived idea will be confirmed, or at all
events will not be overturned, by evidence. Then, when it is
not confirmed, we form our judgment in virtue of a sort of
initiation of the thoughts connected, it is true vdth the per-
ception, and with a direct representation ; but still connected
also with a conception peculiar to ourselves, which is the
parent of error. In fact the representations which intelligence
reflects like a mirror, whether one perceives them in a dream,
or by any other conceptions of the intellect, or of any other of
the criteria, can never resemble the objects that one calls real
and true, unless there were objects of this kind perceived
directly. And, on the other side, error could not be possible,
if we did not receive some other motion also, a sort of initiative
of intelligence connected; it is true with direct representa-
tion, but going beyond that representative. These con-
ceptions being connected with the direct perception which
produces the representation, but going beyond it, in consequence
of a motion peculiar to the individual thought, produces error
when it is not confirmed by evidence, or when it is con-
EPICURUS. 44S
tradicted by evidence; but when it is confirmed, or when it is
not contradicted by evidence, then it produces truth.
"We must carefully preserve these principles in order not to
reject the authority of the faculties which perceive truth
directly; and not, on the other hand, to allow what is false to
be established with equal firmness, so as to throw everything
into confusion.
" Moreover, hearing is producedTby some sort of current pro-
ceeding from something that speaks, or sounds, or roars, or in
any manner causes any sort of audible circumstance. And this
current is difiused into small bodies resembling one another
in their parts ; which, preserving not only some kind of rela-
tion between one another, but even a sort of particular identity
with the object from which they emanate, puts us, very fre-
quently, into a communication of sentiments with this object,
or at least causes us to become aware of the existence of some
external circumstance. If these currents did not carry with
them some sort of sympathy, then there would be no such per-
ception. We must not therefore think that it is the air which
receives a certain form, under the action of the voice or of
some other sound. For it is utterly impossible that the
voice should act in this manner on the air. But the per-
cussion produced in us when we, by the utterance of a voice,
cause a disengagement of certain particles, constitutes a
current resembling a light whisper, and prepares an acoustic
feeling for us.
" We must admit that the case of smelling is the same as
that of. hearing. There would be no sense of smell if there
did not emanate from most objects certain particles capable
of producing an impression on the smell. One class being
ill-suited to the organ, and consequently producing a disordered
state of it, the other being suited to it, and causing it no
distress.
** One must also allow, that the atoms possess no one of the
qualities of sensible objects, except form, weight, magnitude,
and anything else is unavoidably inherent in form ; in fact,
every quality is changeable, but the atoms are necessarily
unchangeable ; for it is impossible but that in the dissolution
of combined bodies, there must be something which continues
solid and indestructible, of such a kind, that it will not
change either into what does not exist, or out of what does
,444 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
not exist ; but that it results either from a simple displace-
ment of parts, which is the most usual case, or from the
addition or subtraction of certain particles. It follows from
that, that that which does not admit of any change in itself^
is imperishable, participates in no respect in the nature of
changeable things, and in a word, has its dimensions and
forms immutably determined. And this is proved plainly
enough, because even in the transformations which take place
under our eyes, in consequence of the retrenchment of certain
parts, we can still recognise the form of these constituent
parts ; while those qucdities, which are not constituent parts,
do not remain like the form, but perish in the dissolution of
the combination. The attributes which we have indicated,
suffice to explain all the differences of combined bodies ; for
we must inevitably leave something indestructible, lest every-
thing should resolve itself into non-existence.
"However, one must not believe that every kind of magni-
tude exists in atoms, lest we find ourselves contradicted by
phsenomena. But we must admit that there are atoms of
dififerent magnitude, because, as that is the case, it is then
more easy to explain the impressions and sensations ; at all
events, I repeat, it is not necessaiy for the purpose of explain-
ing the differences of the qualities, to attribute to atoms
every kind of magnitude.
" We must not suppose either, that an atom can become
visible to us ; for, first of all, one does not see that that is the
case, and besides, one cannot even conceive, how an atom is
to become visible ; besides, we must not believe, that in a
finite body there are particles of every sort, infinite in num-
ber ; consequently, one must not only reject the doctrine of in-
finite divisibility in parcels smaller and smaller, lest we should
be reducing everything to nothing, and find ourselves forced to
admit, that in a mass composed of a crowd of elements, exist-
ence can reduce itself to non-existence. But one cannot even
suppose that a finite object can be susceptible of transforma-
tions ad infinitum^ or even of transformation into smaller
objects than itself ; for when once one has said that there are
in an object particles of eveiy kind, infinite in number, there
is absolutely no means wha^^ver of imagining tlmt this object
can have only a finite magnitude ; in fact, it is evident that
these particles, infinite in number, have some kind of dimen-
EPICURUS. 445
•
eion or other, and whatever this dimension may be in other
respects, the objects which are composed of it will have an
infinite magnitude ; in presenting forms which are deter-
mined, and limits which are perceived by the senses, one con-
ceives, easily, without its being necessary to study this last
question directly, that this would be the consequence of the
contrary supposition, and that consequently, one must come to
look at every object as infinite.
" One must also admit, that the most minute particle per-
ceptible to \he sense, is neither absolutely like the objects
which are susceptible of transformation, nor absolutely differ-
ent from them. It has some characteristics in common with
the object which admit of transformation, but it also differs
from them, inasmuch as it does not allow any distinct parts
to be discerned in it. When then, in virtue of these common
characteristics, and of this resemblance, we wish to form an
idea of the smallest particle perceptible by the senses, in
taking the objects which change for our terms of comparison,
it is necessary that we should seize on some characteristic
common to these different objects. In this way, we examine
them successively, from the first to the last, not by themselves,
nor as composed of parts in juxtaposition, but only in their
extent ; in other words, we consider the magnitudes by them-
selves, and in an abstract manner, inasmuch as they measure,
the greater a greater extent, and the smaller a smaller extent.
This analogy applies to the atom, as far as we consider it as
having the smdlest dimensions possible. Evidently by its
minuteness, it differs from all sensible objects, still this
analogy is applicable to it ; in a word, we establish by this
comparison, that the atom really has some extent, but we
exclude all considerable dimensions, for the sake of only
investing it with the smallest proportions.*
• This ifl the aigmnent in its completed form : " We can only form
an idea of an atom by analogy, and analogy demonstrates to us that it
is not of infinite littleness. In fact, let us compare it to the smallest
particles recognisable by sense, and then let us endeavour to form an
idea of these last. To do this we must take a term of comparison in
complex objects, which are composed of various parts. Abstracting
from these all other characteristics but that of extent, we see that these
objects have dimensions, some greater and some less, measuring an ex-
tent which Ib greater or less as the case may be. The smallest sensible
particle will then have its dimensions ; it wUl measure the smallest pes-
446 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPH£BS«
** We must also admit, in taking for our guide, the reasoning
which discourses to us things which are invisible to the senses,
that the most minute magnitudes, those which are not com-
pound magnitudes, and which from the limit of sensible
extent, are the first measure of the other magnitudes which
are only called greater or less in their relation to the others.
For these relations which they maintain with these particles,
which are not subject to transformation, suffice to give them
this characteristic of first measure. But they cannot, like
atoms, combine themselves, and form compound bodies in
virtue of any motion belonging to themselves.
" Moreover, we must not say (while speaking of the infinite),
that such or such a point is the highest point of it, or the
lowest. For height and lowness must not be predicated of the
infinite. We know, in reality, that if, wishing to determine
the infinite, we conceive a point above our head, this point,
whatever it may be, wUl never appear to us to have the cha-
racter in question : otherwise, that which would be situated
above the point so conceived as the limit of the infinite, would
be at the same moment, and by virtue of its relation to the
same point, both high and low; and this is impossible to
imagine.
** It follows that thought can only conceive that one single
movement of transference, from low to high, ad infinitum;
and one single movement from high to low. From low to
high, when even the object in motion, going from us to the
pla,ces situated above our heads, meets ten thousemd times with
the feet of those who are above us; and from high to low,
when in the same way it advances towards the heads of those
who are below us. For these two movements, looked at by
themselves and in their whole, are conceived as really opposed
the one to the other, in their progress towards the infinite.
" Moreover, all the atoms are necessarily animated by the
same rapidity, when they move across the vacuum, or when no
obstacle thwarts them. For why should heavy atoms have a
more rapid movement than those which are small and hght,
since in no quarter do they encounter any obstacle ? Why, on
sible senedble extent, that is to say, it will not be infinitely smalL'
Applying this analogy to an atom, one comes to conceive it as measuf^
ing .tiie smallest extent possible, but not as having no extent at all,
which was what Epicurus wished to prove.'' — French TrandcUor,
EPioaRUS. 447
the other hand, should the small atoms have a rapidity superior
to that of the large ones, since both the one and the other
find everywhere an easy passage, from the veiy moment that
no obstacle intervenes to thwart their movements? Move-
ment from low to high, horizontal movement to and fro, in
virtue of the reciprocal percussion of the atoms, movement
downwards, in virtue of their weight, will be all equal, for in
whatever sense the atom moves, it must have a movement as
rapid as the thought, till the moment when it is repelled, in
virtue of some external cause, or of its own proper weight, by
the shock of some object which resists it
" Again, even in the compound bodies, one atom does not
move more rapidly than another. In fact, if one only looks
at the continued movement of an atom which takes place in
an indivisible moment of time, the briefest possible, they all
have a movement equally rapid. At the same time, an atom
has not, in any moment perceptible to the intelligence, a con-
tinued movement in the same direction ; but rather a series
of oscillating movements from which there results, in the last
analysis, a continued movement perceptible to the senses.
If then, one were to suppose, in virtue of a reasoning on
things invisible, that, in the intervals of time accessible to
thought, the atoms have a continued movement one would
deceive one's self, for that which is conceived by the thought i^
true as well as that which is directly perceived.
" Let us now return to the study of the affections, and of the
sensations ; for this will be the best method of proving that
the soul is a bodily substance composed of shght particles,
diffused over all the members of the body, and presenting a
great analogy to a sort of spirit, having an admixture of heat,
resembling at one time one, and at another time the otlier of
those two principles. There exists in it a special part, endowed
with an extreme mobility, in consequence i)f lie exceeding
slightness of the elements which compose it, and also in
reference to its more immediate sympathy with the rest of the
body. That it is which the faculties of the soul sufficiently
prove, and the passions, and the mobility of its nature, and
the thoughts, and, in a word, everjrthing, the privation of which
is death. We must admit that it is in the soul most especially
that the principle of sensation resides. At the same time, it
would not possess this power if it were not enveloped by the
448 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHEBS.
rest of the body which communicates it to it, and in its turn
receives it from it ; but only in a certain measure ; fn: there
are certain affections of the soul of which it is not capable.
'^ It is on that account that, when the soul departs, the body
is no longer possessed of sensation ; for it has not this power,
(that of sensation namely) in itself ; but, on the other hand,
this power can only manifest itself in the soul through the
medium of the body. The soul, reflecting the manifestations
which are accomplished in the substance which enyirons it,
realises in itself, in a virtue or power which belongs to it, the
sensible affections, and immediately communicates them to the
body in virtue of the reciprocal bonds of sympathy which unite
it to the body ; that is the reason why the destruction of a part
of the body does not draw alter it a cessation of all feeling in
the soul while it resides in the body, provided that the senses
still preserve some energy ; although, nevertheless, the disso-
lution of the corporeal covering, or even of any one of its
portions, may sometimes bring on with it the destruction of
the soul.
'' The rest of the body, on the other hand^ even when it
remains, either as a whole, or in any part, loses all feeling by
the dispersion of that aggregate of atoms, whatever it may be,
that forms the soul. When the entire combination of the body
is dissolved, then the soul too is dissolved, and ceases to retain
those faculties which were previously inherent in it, and espe-
cially the power of motion ; so that sensation perishes equally
as feu: as the soul is concerned ; for it is impossible to imagine
that it still feels, from the moment when it is no longer in the
same conditions of existence, and no longer possesses the same
movements of existence in reference to the same organic system ;
from the moment, in short, when toe things which cover and
surround it are no longer such, that it retains 'in them the
same movements ^ before.
(Epicurus expresses the same ideas in other works, and adds
that ^e soul is composed of atoms of the most perfect light-
ness and roundness ; atoms wholly different from those of fire.
He distinguishes in it the irrational part which is diffused over
the whole body, from the rational part which has its seat in
the chest, as is proved by the emotions of fear and joy. He
adds that sleep is produced when the parts of the soul diffused
over the whole of the body concentre themselves, or when they
EPICURUS. 449
disperse and escape by the pores of the body ; for particles
emanate from all bodies.)
" It must also be observed, that I use the word incorporeal
(d<fut/iarog) in the usual acceptation of the word, to express
that which is in itself conceived as such. Now, nothing can
be conceived in itself as incorporeal except the vacuum ; but
the vacuum cannot be either passive or active ; it is only the
condition and the place of movement. Accordingly, they who
pretend that the soul is incorporeal, utter words destitute of
sense ; for, if it had this character, it would not be able either
to do or to suffer anything ; but, as it is, we see plainly enough
that it is liable to both these circumstances.
'' Let us then apply all these reasonings to the affections and
sensations, recollecting the ideas which we laid down at the
beginning, and then we shall see clearly that these general
principles contain an exact solution of all the particular cases.
*' As to forms, and hues, and magnitudes, and weight, and the
other qualities which one looks upon as attributes, whether it
be of every body, or of those bodies only which are visible and
perceived by the senses, this is the point of view under which
they ought to be considered : they are not particular sub-
stances, having a peculiar existence of their own, for that
cannot be conceived ; nor can one say any more that they have
no reality at all. They are not incorporeal substances inherent
in the body, nor are they parts of the body. But they consti-
tute by their union the eternal substance and the essence of
the entire body. We must not fancy, however, that the body
is composed of them, as an aggregate is formed of particles of
the smallest dimensions of atoms or magnitudes, whatever
they may be, . smaller than the compound body itself ; they
only constitute by their union, I repeat, the eternal substance
of the body. Each of these attributes has ideas and particular
perceptions which correspond to it ; but they cannot be per-
ceived independently of the whole subject taken entirely ; the
union of all these perceptions forms the idea of the body.
Bodies often possess other attributes which are not eternally
inherent in them, but which, nevertheless, cannot be ranged
among the incorporeal and invisible things. Accordingly, it is
sufficient to express the general idea of the movement of
transference to enable us to conceive in a moment certain
distinct qualities, and those combined beings, which, being
o G
450 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
taken in their totality, receive the name of bodies ; and the
necessary and eternal attributes without which the body cannot
be conceived.
" There are certain conceptions corresponding to these attri-
butes ; but, nevertheless, they cannot be known abstractedly,
and independently of some subjects ; and further, inasmuch
as they are not attributes necessarily inherent in the idea of a
body, one can only conceive them in the moment in which
they are visible ; they are realities nevertheless ; and one
must not refuse them being an existence merely because they
have neither the characteristic of the compound beings to
which we give the name of bodies, nor that of the eternal
attributes. We should be equally deceived if we were to
suppose that they have a separate and independent existence ;
for that is true neither of them nor of the eternal attributes.
They are, as one sees plainly, accidents of the body ; accidents
which do not of necessity maJte any part of its nature ; which
cannot be considered as independent substances, but still to
each of which sensation gives the peculiar character under
which it appears to us.
" Another important question' is that of time. Here we
cannot apply any more the method of examination to which
we submit other objects, which we study with reference to a
given subject ; and which we refer to the preconceptions, which
exist in ourselves. We must seize, by analogy, and going
round the whole circle of things comprised under this general
denomination of time — we must seize, I say — ^that essential
character which causes us to say that a time is long or short.
It is not necessary for that purpose to seek for any new forms
of expression as preferable to those which are in common use ;
we may content ourselves with those by which time is usually
indicated. Nor need we, as certain philosophers do, afl&rm
any particular attribute of time, for that would be to suppose
that its essence is the same as that of this attribute. It is
sufficient too seek for the ingredients of which this particular
nature which we call time is composed, and for the means by
which it is measured. For this we have no need of demon-
stration; a simple exposition is sufficient. It is, in fact,
evident, that we speak of time as composed of days and nights,
and parts of days and nights ; passiveness and impassibility,
movement and repose, are equally comprised in time. In
EPICURUS. 461
short, it is evident that in connection with these different
states, we conceive a particular property to which we give the
name of time.
(Epicurus lays down thejsame principles in the second hook
of his treatise on Nature, and in his great Abridgment.)
*' It is from the infinite that the worlds are derived, and all
the finite aggregates which present numerous analogies with
the things which we observe under our own eyes. Each of
these objects, great and small, has been separated from the
infinite by a movement peculiar to itself. On the other hand,
all these bodies will be successively destroyed, some more, and
others less rapidly ; some under the influence of one cause, and
others because of the agency of some other.
(It is evident, after this, that Epicurus regards the worlds
as perishable, since he admits that their parts are capable of
transformation. He also says in other places, that the earth
rests suspended in the idr.)
*• We must not believe that the worlds have of necessity all
one identical form.
(He says, in fact, in the twelfth book of his treatise on the
World, that the worlds differ from one another ; some being
spherical, other elliptical, and others of other shapes.)
*' Nevertheless, there are not worlds of every possible form
and shape.
** Let us also beware of thinking that animals are derived
from the infinite ; for there is no one who can prove that the
germs from which animals are bom, and plants, and all the
other objects which we contemplate, have been brought from the
exterior in such a world, and that this same world would not
have been able to produce them of itself. This remark applies
particularly to the earth.
** Again, we must admit that in many and various respects,
nature is both instructed and constrained by circumstances
themselves ; and that reason subsequently makes perfect and
enriches with additional discoveries the things which it has
borrowed from nature ; in some cases rapidly, and in others
more slowly. And in some cases according to periods and
times greater than those which proceed from the infinite ; in
other cases according to those wluch are smaller. So, originally
it was only in virtue of express agreements that one gave
names to things. But men whose ideas and passions varied
Q 0 ^
452 UYES OF BMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
according to their respective nations, formed these names of
their own accord, uttering divers sounds produced by each
passion, or by each idea, following the differences of the
situations and of the peoples. At a later period one established
in each nation, in a uniform manner, particular terms intended
to render the relations more easy, and language more concise.
Educated men introduced the notion of things not discover-
able by the senses, and appropriated words to them nvben
they foimd themselves under the necessity of uttering their
thoughts ; after this, other men, guided in every point by
reason, interpreted these words in the same sense.
" As to the heavenly phsenomena, such as the motion and
course of the stars, the eclipses, their rising and setting, and
all other appearances of the same kind, we must beware of
thinking that they are produced by any particular being which
has regulated, or whose business it is to regulate, for the
future, the order of the world, a being immorttd and perfectly
happy; for the cares and anxieties, the benevolence and the
anger, far from being compatible with felicity, are, on the con-
trary, the consequence of weakness, of fear, and of the want
which a thing has of something else. We must not fancy
either that these globes of fire, which roll on in space, enjoy
a perfect happiness, and give themselves, with reflection
and wisdom, the motions which they possess. But we must
respect the established notions on this subject, provided,
nevertheless, that they do not all contradict the respect due
to truth ; for nothing is more calculated to trouble the soul
than this strife of contradictory notions and principles. We
must therefore admit that from the first movement impressed
on the heavenly bodies since the organization of the world
there is derived a sort of necessity which regulates their course
to this day.
" Let us be well assured that-it is to physiology that it belongs
to determine the causes of the most elevated phsenomena, and
that happinesa consists, above all things, in the science of the
heavenly things and their nature, and in the knowledge of
analogous phsenomena which may aid us in the comprehension
of the ethics. These heavenly phaenomena admit of several
explanations ; they have no reason of a necessary character,
and one may explain them in different manners. In a word,
they have no relation — a moment's consideration will prove
BPICURDS. 453
this by itself — ^with those imperishable and happy natures
which admit of no division and of no confusion. As for the
theoretical knowledge of the rising and setting of the stars,
of the movement of the sun between the tropics, of the
eclipses, and all other similar phasnomena, that is utterly
useless, as far as any influence upon happiness that it can
have. Moreover, those who, though possessed of this know-
ledge, are ignorant of nature, and of the most probable causes
of the phsBnomena, are no more protected from fear than if
they were in the most complete ignorance; they even ex-
perience the most lively fears, for the trouble, with which the
knowledge of which they are possessed inspires them, can find
no issue, and is not dissipated by a clear perception of the
reasons of these phsenomena.
" As to us, we find many explanations of the motions of the
sun, of the rising and setting of the stars, of the eclipses and
similar phsenomena, just as well as of the more particular
phsenomena. And one must not think that this method of
' explanation is not sufficient to procure happiness and tran-
quillity. Let us content ourselves with examining how it is
that similar phsenomena are brought about under our own eyes,
and let us apply these observations to the heavenly objects
and to everything which is not known but indirectly. Let us
despise those people who are unable to distinguish facts sus-
ceptible of different explanations from others which can only
exist and be explained in one single way. Let us disdain those
men who do not know, by means of the different images which
result from distance, how to give an account of the different
appearances of things ; who, in a word, are ignorant what are
the objects which can excite any trouble in us. If, then, we
know that such a phsenomenon can be brought about in the
same manner as another given phaenomenon of the same cha-
racter which does not inspire us with any apprehension ; and
if, on the other hand, we know that it can take place in many
different manners, we shall not be more troubled at the sight
of it than if we knew the real cause of it.
" We must also recollect that that which principally con-
tributes to trouble the spirit of men is the persuasion whicti
they cherish that the stars are beings imperishable and per-
fectly happy, and that then one's thoughts and actions are in
contradiction to the will of these superior beings ; they also,
454 LIVES OF EMINENT PHIL060PHEBS.
being deluded by these fables, apprehend an eternity of evils,
they fear the insensibility of death, as that could affect them.
What do I say ? It is not even belief, but inconsiderateness
and blindness which govern them in every thing, to such
a degree that, not calculating these fears, they are just as much
troubled as if they had really faith in these vain phantoms.
And the real freedom from this kind of trouble consists in
being emancipated from all these things, and in preserving
the recollection of all the principles which we have esta-
blished, especially of the most essential of them. Accordingly,
it is well to pay a scrupulous attention to existing phsenomena
and to the sensations, to the general sensations for general
things, and to the particular sensations for particular things.
In a word, we must take note of this, the immediate evidence
with which each of these judicial faculties furnishes us ; for, if
we attend to these points, namely, whence confusion and fear
arise, we shall divine the causes correctly, and we shall deliver
ourselves from those feelings, tracing back the heavenly phse-
nomena to their causes, and also all the others which present
themselves at every step, and inspire the common people with
extreme terror.
" This, Herodotus, is a kind of summary and abridgment
of the whole question of natural philosophy. So that, if this
reasoning be allowed to be valid, and be preserved carefully in
the memory, the man who allows himself to be influenced by
it, even though he may not descend to a profound study of its
details, will have a great superiority of character over other
men. He will personally discover a great number of truths
which I have myself set forth in my entire work ; and these
truths being stored in his memory, will be a constant assistance
to him. By means of these principles, those who have descended
into the details, and have studied the question sufficiently,
will be able, in bringing* in all their particular knowledge
to bear on the general subject, to run over without difficulty
almost the entire circle of the natural philosophy ; those, on
the other hand, who are not yet arrived at perfection, and
who have not been able to hear me lecture on these subjects,
will be able in their minds to run over the main of the
essential notions, and to derive assistance from them for the
tranquillity and happiness of life."
This then is his letter on physics.
EPICURUS. 455
XXV. About the heavenly bodies he writes thus : —
EPICURUS TO PYTHOCLES, WISHING HE MAY DO WELL.
" Cleon has brought me your letter, in which you continue
to evince towards me an affection worthy of the friendship
which I have for you. You devote all your care, you tell me, to
engraving in your memory those ideas which contribute to the
happiness of life ; and you entreat me at the same time to
send you a simple abridgment and abstract of my ideas on
the heavenly phfisnomena, in order that you may without
difficulty preserve the recollection of them. For, say you,
what I have written on this subject in my other works is
difficult to recollect, even with continual study.
** I willingly yield to your desire, and I have good hope,
that in fulfilling what you ask, I shall be useful too to many
others, especially to those who are as yet novices in the real
knowledge of nature, and to those to whom the perplexities
and the ordinary affairs of life leave but little leisure. Be
careful then to seize on those precepts thoroughly, engrave
them deeply in your memory, and meditate on them with the
abridgment addressed to Herodotus, which I also send you.
** Know then, that it is with the knowledge of the heavenly
pheenomena, both with those which are spoken of in contact
with one another, and of those which have a spontaneous exist-
ence, as with every other science ; it has no other aim but
that freedom from anxiety, and that calmness which is derived
from a firm belief.
"It is not good to desire what is impossible, and to endeavour
to enunciate a uniform theory about everything ; accordingly,
we ought not here to adopt the method, which we have fol-
lowed in our researches into Ethics, or in the solution of
problems of natural philosophy. We there said, for instance;
that there are no other things, except bodies and the vacuum,
that the atoms are the principles of things, and so of the rest.
In a word, we gave a precise and simple explanation of every
fact, conformable to appearances.
" We cannot act in the same way with respect to the hea-
venly phenomena ; these productions may depend upon several
different causes, and we may give maiiy different explanations on
this subject,equally agreeing with the impressions of the senses.
Besides, it is not here a question about reasoning on new prin-
456 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
ciples, and of laying down, d priori, rules for the interpreta-
tion of nature ; the only guides for us to follow are the
appearances themselres ; for that which we have in view is
not a set of systems and vain opinions, but much rather a life
exempt from every kind of disquietude.
" The heavenly phsenomena do not inspire those who give
different explanations of them, conformable with appearances,
instead of explaining them by hypothesis, with any alarm.
But if, abandoning hypothesis, one at the same time re-
nounces the attempt to explain them by means of analogies
founded on appearances, then one is placing one's self alto-
gether at a distance from the science of nature, in. order to
fall into fables.
" It is possible that the heavenly pheenomena may present
some apparent characters which appear to assimilate them
to those phaenomena which we see taking place around our-
selves, without there being any real analogy at the bottom.
For the heavenly pheenomena may depend for their production
on many different causes ; nevertheless, we must observe the
appearances presented by each, and we must distinguish the
different circumstances which attach to them, and which can
be explained in different manners by means of analogous
phsBnomena which arise under our eyes.
*' The world is a collection of things embraced by the heaven,
containing the stairs, the earth, and all visible objects. This
collection, separated from the infinite, is terminated by an
extremity, which is either rare, or dense, or revolving, or in a
state of repose, or of a round, or triangular, or of some shape
or other in fact, for it may be of any shape, the dissolution of
which must bring the destruction of everything which thej
embrace. In fact, it can take place in every sort of way, since
there is not one of those things which are seen which testifies
against this world in which we cannot detect any extremity ;
and that such worlds are infinite in number is easily seen, and
also that such a world can exist both in the world and in the
/i,tTaK6(r/iiov, as we call the space between the worlds, being a
huge space made up of plenum and vacuum, but not, as some
philosophers pretend, an immensity of space absolutely emptv.
This production of a world may be explained thus : seeds
suitably appropriated to such an end may emanate either from
one or from several worlds, or from the space that separates
BWCURUS. ., -, 457
them ; they flow towards a particular point where they become
collected together and organized ; after that, other germs come
to unite them together in such a way as to form a durable
whole, a basis, a nucleus to which all successive additions
unite themselves.
*' One must not content one*s self in this question with saying,
as one of the natural philosophers has done, that there is a
re-union of the elements, or a violent motion in the vacuum
under the influence of necessity, and that the body which is
thus produced increases until it comes to crash against some
other ; for this doctrine is contraiy to appearances.
** The sun, the moon, and the other stars, were originally
formed separately, and were afterwards comprehended in the
entire total of the world. All the other objects which our
world comprises, for instance, the earth and the sea, were also
formed spontaneously, and subsequently gained size by the
addition and violent movement of light substances, composed
of elements of Are and air, or eveli of these two principles at
once. This explanation, moreover, is in accordance with the
impressions of the senses.
'* As to the magnitude of the sun and of the other stars, it is,
as far as we are concerned, such as it appears to us to be.
(This same doctrine is reproduced, and occurs again in the
eleventh book of his treatise on Nature ; where he says, ** If
the distance has made it lose its size, d fortiori, it would take
away its brilliancy; for colour has not, any more than size, the
property of traversing distance without alteration.")
" But, considered by itself, the sun may be a little greater or
a little smaUer than it appears ; or it may be just such as it
looks ; for that is exactly the case with the fires of common
occurrence among men, which are perceived by the senses at
a distance. Besides, all the difficulties on this subject will be
easily explained if one attends to the clear evidence of the
perceptions, as I have shown in my books about Nature.
" The rising and setting of the sun, of the moon, and of the
stars, may depend on the fact of their becoming lighted up,
and extinguished alternately, and in the order which we behold.
One may also give other reasons for this phsBuomenon, which
are not contradicted by any sensible appearances ; accordingly,
one might explain them by the passage of the stars above and
468 LIVES OP EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
below the earth, for the impressions of the senses agree also
with this supposition.
" As to Uieir motion, one may make that depend on the
circular movement of the entire heaven. One may also sup-
pose that the stars move, while the heaven itself is immove-
able ; for there is nothing to prevent the idea that originally,
before the formation of lie world, they may have received, by
the appointment of fate, an impulse from east to west, and
tliat now their movement continues in consequence of their
heat, as the fire naturally proceeds onwards in order to seek
the aliment which suits it.
*' The intertropical movements of the sun and moon may
depend, either on the obliquity impressed by fate on the heaven
at certain determined epochs, or on the resistance of the air,
or on the fact that these ignited bodies stand in need of being
nourished by a matter suitable to their nature, and that this
matter fails them ; or finally, they may depend on the fact of
their having originally received an impulse which compels
them to move as they do describing a sort of spiral figure.
The sensible evidence does not in the least contradict these
different suppositions, and all those of the same kind which
one can form, having always a due regard to what is possible,
and bringing back' each pbsBnomenon to its analogous appear-
ances in sensible facts, without disquieting one's self about the
miserable speculations of the astronomers.
** The evacuations and subsequent replenishings of the moon
may depend either on a conversion of this body, or on the
different forms which the air when in a fiery state can adopt,
or perhaps to the interposition of another body, or lastly, to
some one of the causes by which one gives account of the
analogous phaanomena which pass under our eyes. Provided,
however, that one does not obstinately adopt an exclusive
mode of explanation ; and that, for want of knowing what is
possible for a man to explain, and what is inaccessible to his
intelligence ; one does not throw one's self into interminable
speculations.
" It may also be possibly the case that the moon has a light
of her own, or that she reflects that of the sun. For we see
around us many objects which are luminous of themselves, and
many others which have only a borrowed light. In a word,
EPICURUS. 459
one will not be arrested by any of the celestial phaenomena,
provided that one always recollects that there are many
explanations possible ; that one examines the principles and
reasons which agree with this mode of explanation, and that
one does not proceed in accounting for the facts which do not
agree with this method, to suffer one's self to be foolishly carried
away, and to propose a separate explanation for each pheno-
menon, sometimes in one way, and sometimes in another.
** The appearance of a face in the orb of the moon, may
depend either on a displacement of its parts, or on the inter-
position of some obstacle, or on any other cause capable of
accounting for such an appearance. For one must not neglect
to apply this same method to all the heavenly phaenomena ;
for, from the moment when one comes to any point of contra-
diction to the evidence of the senses, it will be impossible to
possess perfect tranquillity and happiness.
" The eclipses of the sun and moon may depend either on
the fact that these stars extinguish themselves, a phaenome-
non which we often see produced under our eyes, or on the
fact of other bodies, the earth, the heaven, or something else
of the same kind interposing, between them and us. Besides,
we must compare the different modes of explanation appro-
priate to phaBnomena, and recollect that it is not impossible
that many causes may at one and the same time concur in
their production.
(He says the same thing in the twelfth book of his treatise
on Nature ; and adds that the eclipses of the sun arise from
the fact that it penetrates into the shade of the moon, to quit
it again presently ; and the eclipses of the moon from the fact
of its entering into the shade of the earth. We also find the
same doctrine « asserted by Diogenes, the Epicurean, in the
iirst book of his Select Opinions.)
*' The regular and periodical march of these phaenomena has
nothing in it that ought to surprise us, if we only attend to
the analogous facts which take place under our eyes. Above
all things let us beware of making ^e Deity interpose here,
for that being we ought to suppose exempt from all occupation
and perfectly happy ; otherwise we shall be only giving vain
explanations of the heavenly phaenomena, as has happened
already to a crowd of authors. Not being able to recognize
what is really possible, they have fallen into vain theories, in
460 LIVES OP EinNENT PHILOSOPHERS.
supposing that for all pbaenomena there was but one single
mode of production, and in rejecting all other explanations
which are founded on probability ; they have adopted the
most unreasonable opinions, for want of placing in the front
the study of the heavenly phaenomena, and of sensible facts,
which ought to serve to explain the first.
" The differences in the length of nights and days may arise
from the fact that the passage of the sim above the earth
IS more or less rapid ; and more or less slow, according to
the length of the regions which it has to pass through. Or,
again, to the fact that certain regions are passed through more
rapidly than others, as is seen to be the case by our own eyes,
m those things to which we can compare the heavenly phae-
nomena. As to those who on this point admit only one
explanation as possible, they put themselves in opposition to
facts, and lose sight of the bounds set to human knowledge.
** The prognostics which are derived from the stars may, like
those which we borrow from animals, arise from a simple
Coincidence. They may also have other causes, for example.
Some change in the air ; for these two suppositions both
harmonize equally with facts ; but it is impossible to distinguish
in what case one is to attribute them to the one cause or to
the other.
'* The clouds may be formed either by the air condensed
under the pressure of the winds, or by the agency of atoms
set apart for that end, or by emanations from the earth and
waters, or by other causes. For there are a great number
which are all equally able to produce this effect. When the
clouds clash witii one another, or undergo any transformation,
they produce showers ; and the long rains are caused by the
motion of the clouds when moved from places suitable to them
through the air, when a more violent inundation than usual
takes place, from collections of some masses calculated to
produce these effects.
" Thunder possibly, arises from the movement of the winds
revolving in the cavities of the clouds ; of which we may see
an image in vessels in our own daily use. It may also arise
from the noise of fire acted upon by the wind in them, and
from the tearings and ruptures of the clouds when they have
received a sort of crystaJine consistency. In a word, experi-
ence drawn from our senses, teaches us that all these phseno-
EPICURUS. 461
mena, and that one in particular, may be produced in many
different manners.
" One may also assign different causes to the lightning;
either the shock and collision of the clouds produce a fiery
appearance, which is followed by lightning; or the lighting
up of the clouds by the winds, produces this luminous appear-
ance ; or the mutual pressure of the clouds, or that of the
wind against them, disengages the lightning. Or, one might
say, that the interception of the light diffused from the stars,
arrested for a time in the bosom of the clouds, is driven from
them subsequently by their own movements, and by those of
the winds, and so escapes from their sides ; that the light-
ning is an extremely subtile light that evaporates from the
clouds ; that the clouds which carry the thunder are collected
masses of fire ; that the lightning arises from the motion of
the fire, or from the conflagration of the wind, in consequence
of the rapidity and continuousness of its motion. One may
also attribute the luminous appearance of lightning to the
rupture of the clouds imder the action of the winds, or to the
fall of inflammable atoms. Lastly, one may easily find a
number of other explanations, if one applies to sensible facts,
in order to search out the analogies which they present to the
heavenly phaenomena.
" Lightning precedes thunder, either because it is produced
at the same moment that the wind falls on the cloud, while
the noise is only heard at the instant when the wind has
penetrated into the bosom of the cloud ; or, perhaps, the two
ph»nomena being simultaneous, the lightning arrives among
us more rapidly than the noise of the thunder-bolt, as is in
fact remarked in other cases when we see at a distance the
clash of two objects.
" The thunderbolt may be produced either by a violent con-
densation of the winds,- or by their rapid motion and confla-
gration. It may arise from the fact of the winds meeting in
places which are too dense, in consequence of the accumulation
of clouds, and then a portion of the current detaches itself and
proceeds towards the lower situations ; or else it may be caused
by the fire which is contained in the bosom of the clouds pre-
cipitating itself downwards. As one may suppose that an
immense quantity of fire being accumulated in the clouds
dilates, violently bursting the substance which envelops it.
462 LIVES OF EBONENT PHILOSOPHERS.
because the resistance of the centre hinders it from proceediDg
further. This effect is especially produced in the neighbour-
hood of high mountains; and, accordingly, they are very
frequently struck with the thunderbolts. In short, one may
give a number of explanations of the thunderbolt ; but we
ought, above all things, to be on our guard against fables, and
this one will easily be, if one follows faithfully the sensible
phsBuomeua in the explanation of these things, which are not
perceived, except indirectly.
"Hurricanes (flr^jjtfrS^f «) may be caused either by the presence
of a cloud, which a violent wind sets in motion and precipitates
with a spiral movement towards the lower regions, or by a
violent gust which bears a cloud into the neighbourhood of
some other current, or else by the mere agitation of the wind
by itself, when air is brought together from the higher regions
and compressed without being able to escape on either side, in
consequence of the resistance of the air which surrounds it ;
when the hurricane descends towards the earth, then there
result whirlwinds in proportion to the rapidity of the wind
that has produced them ; and this phsBnomenon extends over
the sea also.
" Earthquakes may arise from the wind penetrating into tbe
interior of the earth, or from the earth itself receiving in-
cessantly the addition of exterior particles, and being in
incessant motion as to its constituent atoms, being in con-
sequence disposed to a general vibration. That which per-
mits the vdnd to penetrate is the fact that falls take place in
the interior, or that the air being impressed by the winds
insinuates itself into the subterraneous caverns. The move-
ment which numberless falls and the re-action of the earth
communicate to the earth, when this motion meets bodies of
greater resistance and solidity, is sufficient to explain tbe
earthquakes. One might, however, give an account of them
in several other ways.
" Winds are caused, either by the successive and regular
addition of some foreign matter, or else by the re-union of
a great quantity of water ; and the differences of the winds
may^ arise from the hct that some portions of this same matter
fall into the numerous cavities of the earth, and are divided
there.
'* Hail is produced by an energetic condensation acting on
EPICURUS. 463
the ethereal particles which the cold embraces in every direc-
tion ; or, in consequence of a less violent condensation acting
however on aqueous particles, and accompanied by division, in
such a manner as to produce, at the same time, the re-union
of certain elements and of the collective masses ; or by the
rupture of some dense and compact mass which would explain
at the same time, the numerousness of the particles and their
individual hardness. As to the spherical form of the hail, one
may easily account for that by admitting that the shocks
which it receives in every direction make all the angles
disappear, or else that at the moment when the different
fragments are formed, each of them is equally embraced on all
sides by aqueous or ethereal particles.
" Snow may be produced by a light vapour full of moisture
which the clouds allow to escape by passages intended for that
end, when they are pressed, in a corresponding manner, by
other clouds, and set in motion by the wind. Subsequently,
these vapours become condensed in their progress under the
action of the cold which surrounds the clouds in the lower
regions. It may also be the case that this phsBnomenon is
produced by clouds of a slight density as they become con-
densed. In this case the snow which escapes from the clouds
would be the result of the contact, or approximation of the
aqueous particles, which in a still more condensed state produce
hail. This effect is most especially produced in the air. Snow,
again, may result from the collection of clouds previously con-
densed and solidified ; or from a whole army of other causes. '
" Dew proceeds from a re-union of particles contained in the
air calculated to produce this moist substance. These particles
may be also brought from places which are moist or covered
with water (for in those places, above all others, it is that
dew is abundant). These then re-unite, again resume their
aqueous form, and fall down. The same phaBuomenon takes
place in other cases before our own eyes under many analogies.
" Hoar-frost is dew congealed by the influence of the cold
air that surrounds it.
'* Ice is formed either by the detrition of round atoms con-
tained in the water, and the re-union at scalene and acute
angles of the atoms which exist in the water, or by an addition
from without of these latter particles, which, penetrating into
464 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
the water, solidify it by driving away an eqoal amount of round
atx)ms.
" The rainbow may be produced by the reflection of the solar
rays on the moist air ; or it may arise from a particular pro-
perty of light and air, in virtue of which these particular
appearances of colour are formed, either because the shades
which we perceive result directly from this property, or because,
on the contrary, it only produces one single shade, which,
reflecting itself on the nearest portions of the air, communi-
cates to them the tints which we observe. As to the circular
form of the rainbow, that depends either on the fact of the
sight perceiving an equal distance in every direction, or the
fact of the atoms taking this form when re-uniting in the air ;
or it may be caused by its detaching from the air which moves
towards the moon, certain atoms which, being re -united in the
clouds, give rise to this circular appearance.
" The lunar halo arises from the fact of the air, wliich moves
towards the moon from all quarters, uniformly intercepting the
rays emitted by this star, in such a way as to form around it
a sort of circular cloud which partially veils it. It may also
arise from the fact of the moon uniformly rejecting from all
quarters, the air which surrounds it, in such a manner as to
produce tMs circular and opaque covering. And perhaps this
opaqueness may be caused by some particles which some
current brings from without ; perhaps also, the heat communi-
cates to the moon the property of emitting by the pores in
its surface, the particles by which this effect is produced.
" Comets arise either from the fact, that in the circumstances
abready stated, there are partial conflagrations in certain points
of the heaven; or, that at certain periods, the heaven has
above our heads a particular movement which causes them to
appear. It may also be the case, that being themselves
endowed with a peculiar movement, they advance at the end
of certain periods of time, and in consequence of particular
circumstances, towards the places which we inhabit. The
opposite reasons explain their disappearance.
" Certain stars return to the same point in accomplishing
their revolutions ; and this arises, not only as has been some-
times believed, from the fact of the pole of the world, around
which they move, being immoveable, but also from the fact
that the gyrations of the air which smrounds them, hinder
EPIOTTBUS. 465
them from deviations like* the wandering stars. Perhaps also,
this may he caused hy the fact, that except in the route in
which ihey move, and in which ;e perceive them, they do not
find any material suitahle to their nature. One may also
explain this phasnomenon in many other manners, reasoning
according to sensible facts ; thus, it is posfii|[)le that certain
stars may be wandering because that is the nature of their
movements, and, for the same reason, others may be immove-
able. It is ako possible, that the sam.e necessity which has
originally given tiiem their circular movement, may have
compelled some to follow their orbit regularly, and have
subjected others to an irregular progress ; we may also suppose
that the uniform character of Uie centre which certain stars
traverse favour their regular march, and their return to a'certain ;
and that in the case of others, on the contrary, the differences
of the centre produce the changes which we observe. Besides,
to assign one single cause to all these phsenomena, when the
experience of our senses suggests us several, is folly. It is
the conduct of ignorant astronomers covetous of a vain know-
ledge, who, assigning imaginary causes to facts, wish to leave
wholly to the Deity the care of tiie government of the imiverse.
** Some stars appear to be left behind by others in their
progress ; this arises either from the fact of their having a
slower motion, though traversing the same circle ; or, because,
though they are drawn on by the same propelling power, they
have, nevertheless, a movement proper to themselves in a
contrary direction; or it may be caused by the fact that,
though all are placed in the same sphere of movement, still
some have more space to traverse, and others less. To give
one uniform and positive explanation of all these facts, is not
consistent with the conduct of any people but tixose who love
to flash prodigies in the eyes of the multitude.
" Falling stars may be particles detached from the stars, or
fragments resulting from their collision; they may also be
produced by the fall of substances which are set on fire by the
action of the wind ; by the re-union of inflammable atoms
which are made to come together so as to produce this eflect
by a sort of reciprocal attraction ; or else by the movement
which is produced in consequence of the re-union of atoms in
the very place where they meet. It may also happen that
the light vapours re-unite and become condensed under the
H H
466 LIVES OF EUIKENT PHILOSOPHEBS.
form of clouds, that thej then take fire in consequence of their
rotatory motion, and that, bursting the obstacles which surround
them, they proceed towards the places whither the force by
which they are animated drags them. In short, this pheno-
menon also may admit of a great number of explanations.
*' The presages which are drawn from certain animals arise
from a fortuitous concourse of circumstances ; for there is no
necessaiy connection between certain animals and winter. They
do not produce it ; • nor is there any divine nature sitting
aloft watching the exits of these animals, and then accom-
plishing signs of this kind. Nor can such folly as this occur
to any being who is even moderately comfortable, much less
to one which is possessed of perfect happiness.
** Imprint all these precepts in your memory, O Pythocles,
and so you will easily escape fables, and it will be easy for you to
discover other truths analogous to these. Above all, apply your-
self to the study of general principles, of the infinite, and of ques-
tions of this kind, and to the investigation of the different criteria
and of the passions, and to the study of the chief good, with a
view to which we prosecute all our researches. When these ques-
tions are once resolved, all particular difficulties will be made
plain to you. As to those who will not apply themselves to
these principles, they will neither be able to give a good ex-
planation of these same questions, nor to reach that end to
which all our researches tend.*
XXVI. Such are his sentiments on the heavenly phseno-
mena. But concerning the rules of life, and how we ought to
choose some things, and avoid others, he writes thus. But
first of all, let us go through the opinions which he held, and
his disciples held about the wise man.
He said that injuries existed among men, either in con-
sequence of hatred, or of envy, or of contempt, all which the
wise man overcomes by reason. Also, that a man who has
once been wise can never receive the contrary disposition, nor
can he of his own accord invent such a state of things as that
he should be subjected to the dominion of the passions ; nor
can he hinder himself in his progress towards wisdom. That
the wise man, however, cannot exist in every state of body,
nor in «very nation. That even if the wise man were to be
put to the torture, he would still be happy. That the wiss
man will only feel gratitude to his friends, but to them equally
EPICURUS, 467
whether they are present or absent. Nor will he groan and
howl when be is put to the torture. Nor will he marry a wife
whom the laws forbid, as Diogenes says, in his epitome of the
Ethical Maxims of Epicurus. He will punish his servants,
but also pity them, and show indulgence to any that are
virtuous. They 4o not think that the wise man will ever be
in love, nor that he will be anxious about his burial, nor that
love is a passion inspired by the Gods, as Diogenes says in
his twelfth book. They also assert that he will be indifiFerent
to the study of oratory. Marriage, say they, is never any good
to a man, and we must be quite content if it does no harm ;
and the wise man wR ne^er marry or beget children, as
Epicurus himself lays it down, in his Doubts and in his
treatises on Nature. Still, under certain circumstances of life,
he will forsake these rules and marry. Nor will he ever
indulge in drunkenness, says Epicurus, in his Banquet, nor
will he entangle himself in affairs of state (as he says in his
first book on Lives). Nor will he become a tyrant. Nor will
he become a Cynic (as he says in his second book about Lives).
Nor a beggar. And even, ^ough he should lose his eyes, he
will still partake of life (as he says in the SEime book).
Th^ wise man will be subject to grief, as Diogenes says, in
the fifth book of his Select Opinions ; he will also not object
to go to law. He will leave books and memorials of himself
behind him, but he will not be fond of frequenting assemblies.
He will take care of his prbperty, and provide for the future.
He wiU like being in the country, he will resist fortune, and
will grieve none of his friends. He will show a regard for a fair
reputation to such an extent as to avoid being despised ; and
he will find more pleasure than other men in speculations*
All faults are not equal. Health is good for some people^
but a matter of indifference to others. Courage is a quality
which does not exist by nature, but which is engendered by a
consideration of what is suitable. Friendship is caused by
one*s v^ants ; but it must be begun on our side. For we sow
the earth ; and friendship arises from a community of, and
participation in, pleasures. Happiness must be understood in
two senses ; the highest happiness, such as is that of God,
which admits of no increase ; and ano^r kind, which admits
of the addition or abstraction of pleasures. The wise man may,
raise statues if it suits his inclination, if it does not it does
H H 2
468 Livss OP smraNT rmLosoPHEBs.
not signify. The wise man is the only person who can con-
verse correctly about music and poetry ; and be can realise
poems, but not become a poet
It is possible for one wise man to be wiser than another.
The wise man will also, if he is in need, earn money, but onlj
by his wisdom ; he will propitiate an absolute ruler when
occasion requires, and will humour him for the sake of cor-
recting his habits ; he wiU have a school, but not on such a
system as to draw a crowd about him ; he will also recite in a
multitude, but that will be against his inclination ; he will
pronounce dogmas, and will express no doubts ; he will be the
same man asleep and awake ; and he will be willing even to
die for a friend.
These are the Epicurean doctrines.
XXVIL We must now proceed to his letter :—
ft
EFICUBUS TO HENJICEUS GBEETING.
" Let no one delay to study philosophy while he is young,
and when he is old let him not become weary of the study;
for no man can ever find the time unsuitable or too late to
study the health of his souL And he who asserts either that
it is not yet time to philosophize, or that the hour is passed,
is like a man who should say that the time is not yet come to
be happy, or that it is too late. ^ So that both young and old
should study philosophy, the one in order that, when he is old,
he may be young in good things through the pleasing recollec-
tion of the past, and the other in order that he may be at the
same time both young and old, in consequence of his absence
of fear for the future.
"It is right then for a man to consider the things which pro-
duce happiness, since, if happiness is present, we have eveiy-
thing, and when it is absent, we do everything with a view to
possess it. Now, what I have constantly recommended to yon,
these things I would have you do and practise, considering
them to be the elements of living well. First of all, believe
that God is a being incorruptible and happy, as the common
opinion of the world about God dictates ; and attach to your
idea of him nothing which is inconsistent with incorruptibilitr
or with happiness ; and think that he is invested with every-
thing which is able to preserve to him this happiness, in
conjunction with incorruptibility. For there are Gods ; for
EHCURTTB. 469
our knoiw'ledge of them is indistinct But they are not of the
character which people in general attribute to them ; for they
do not pay a respect to them which accords with the ideas that
they entertain of them. And that man is not impious who
discards the Gods believed in by the many, but he who applies
to the Gods the opinions entertained of them by the many.
For the assertions of the many about the Gods are not antici-
pations (cr^oX^-vf/g/g), but false opinions (woX^>}/5/g). And in
consequence of these, the greatest evils which befall wicked
men, and the benefits which are conferred on the good, are all
attributed to the Gods; for they connect all their ideas of
them with a comparison of human virtues, and everything
which is different from human qualities, they regard as incom-
patible vdth the divine nature.
" Accustom yourself also to think death a matter with which
we are not at all concerned, since all good and all evil is in
sensation, and since death is only the privation of sensation.
On which account, the correct knowledge of the fact that
death is no concern of ours, makes the mortality of life pleasant
to us, inasmuch as it sets forth no illimitable time, but relieves
us for the longing for immortality. For there is nothing
terrible in living to a man who r^hdy comprehends that there
is nothing terrible in ceasing to live ; so that he was a silly
man who said that he feared death, not because it would grieve
him when it was present, but because it did grieve him while
it was future. For it is very absurd that that which does not
distress a man when it is present, should aflBict him when only
expected. Therefore, the most formidable of all evils, death,
is nothing to us, since, when we exist, death is not present to
us ; and when death is present, then we have no existence.
It is no concern then either of the living or of the dead ; since
to the one it has no existence, and the other class has no
existence itself But people in general, at times fiee from
death as the greatest of evils, and at times wish for it as a rest
from the evils in life. Nor is the not living a thing feared,
since living is not connected with it : nor does the wise man
think not living an evil ; but, just as he chooses food, not
preferring that which is most abundant, but that which is
nicest ; so too, he enjoys time, not measuring it as to whether
it is of the greatest length, but as to whether it is most agree-
able. And he who enjoins a young man to live well, and an
470 LIVES OF EMINSNT PHILOSOPHBB&
old man to die well, is a simpleton* not only because of the
constantly delightful nature of lifp, but also because the care
to live well is identical with the care to die well. And he
was still more wrong who said : —
' "'Tig well to taste of life, and then when bom
To pass with qtuckness to the shades below.'*'
•* For if this really was his opinion why did he not quit life?
for it was easily in his*power to do so, if it really was his
belief. But if he was joking, then he was talking fooli^y in
a case where it ought not to be allowed; and, we must recollect,
that the future is not our own, nor, on the other hand, is it
wholly not our own, I mean so that we can never altogether
await] it vdth a feeling of certainty that it will be, nor alto-
gether despair of it as what will never be. And we must con-
sider that some of the passions are natural, and some empty ;
and of the natural ones some are necessary, and some merely
natuial. And of the necessary one's some are necessary to
happiness, and others, with regard to the exemption of the
body, from trouble ; and others with respect to living itself; for
a correct theory, with regard to these things, can refer all
choice and avoidance to the health of the body and the freedom
from disquietude of the soul. Since this is the end of living
happily ; for it is for the sake of this that we do everything,
wishing to avoid grief and fear ; and when once this is the
case, with respect to us, then the storm of the soul is, as I may
say, put an end to ; since the animal is unable to go as if to
something deficient, and to seek something different from that
by which the good of the soul and body wHl be perfected.
'* For then we have need of pleasure when we grieve, because
pleasure is not present ; but when we do not grieve, then we
have no need of pleasure ; and on this account, we affirm, that
pleasure is the beginning and end of living happily; for we
have recognized this as the first good, being connate with
us ; and with reference to it, it is diat we begin every choice
and avoidance ; and to this we come as if we judged of all good
by passion as the standard ; and, since this is the first good
and connate with us, on this account we do not choose every
pleasure, but at times we pass over many pleasures when any
difficulty is likely to ensue from them ; and we think many
'- * This is a quotation from Theognis.
EPICURUS. 471
*
pains better than pleasures, when a greater pleasure follows
them, if we endure the pain for a time.
'' Every pleasure is therefore a good on account of its own na-
ture, but it does not follow that eveiy pleasure is worthy of being
chosen ; just as every pain is an evil, and yet every pain must
not be avoided. But it is right to estimate all these things by
the measurement and view of what is suitable and unsuitable ;
for at times we may feel the good as an evil, and at times, on
the contrary, we may feel the evil as good. And, we think,
contentment a great good, not in order that we may never have
but a little, but in order that, if we have not much, we may
make use of a httle, being genuinely persuaded that those
men enjoy luxury most completely who are the best able to do
without it; and that everything which is natural is easily
provided, and what is useless is not easily procured. And simple
flavours give as much pleasure as costly fare, when every^ing
that can give pain, and every feeling of want, is removed ; and
com and water give the most extreme pleasure when any one
in need eats them. To accustom one's self, therefore, to simple
-and inexpensive habits is a great ingredient in the perfecting
of health, and makes a man free from hesitation with respect
to the necessary uses of life. And when we, on certain occa-
sions, £glL1 in with more sumptuous fare, it makes us io a
better disposition towards it, and renders us fearless with
respect to fortune. When, therefore, we say that pleasure is
a chief good, we are not spiBaking of the pleasures of the
debauched man, or those which lie in sensual ei^oyment, as
some think who are ignorant, and who do not entertain our
opinions, or else interpret them perversely ; but we mean the
freedom of the body from pain, and of the soul from confusion.
For it is not continued drinkings and revels, or the enjoyment
of female society, or feasts of fish and other such things, as a
costly table supplies, that make life pleasant, but sober con-
templation, which examines into the 'reasons for ail choice
and avoidance, and which puts to flight the vain opinions
from which the greater part of the confusion arises which
troubles the soul.
'* Now, the beginning and the greatest good of all these
things is prudence, on which account prudence is something
more valuable than even philosophy, inasmuch as all the other
virtues spring from it, teaching us that it is not possible to
472 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHEBS.
live pleasantlj unl'ess one also lives pradentlj, and hononrablj.
and justly ; and that one cannot live pradently, and honestly,
and justly, without living pleasantly; for the virtues are
connate with living agreeably, and living agreeably is in-
separable from the virtues. Since, who can yon think better
than that man who has holy opinions respecting the Grods, and
who is utterly fearless with respect to death, and who has
properly contemplated the end of nature, and who compre-
hends that the chief good is easily perfected and easily pro-
vided; and the greatest evil lasts but a short period, and
causes but brief pain. And who has no belief in necessity,
which is set up by some as the mistress of all things, but he
refers some thmgs to fortune, some to ourselves, because ne-
cessity is an irresponsible power, and because he sees that
fortune is unstable, while our own will is free; and^this freedom
constitutes, in our case, a responsibility which makes ns en-
counter blame and praise. Since it would be better to follow
the fables about the Gods than to be a slave to the fate of the
natural philosopher ; for the fables which are told give us a
sketch, as if we could avert the wrath of God by paying him
honour; but the other presents us with necessity who is
inexorable.
" And he, not thinking fortune a goddess, as the generality
esteem her (for nothing is done at random by a God), nor a
cause which no man can rely on, for he thinks that good or
evil is not given by her to men so as to make them live happily,
but that the principles of great goods or great evils are supphed
by her; thinking it better to be unfortunate in accordance
with reason, than to be fortunate irrationally ; for that those
actions which are judged to be the best, are rightly done in
consequence of reason.
" Do you then study these precepts, and those which are akin
to them, by all means day and night, pondering on them by
yourself, and discussing them with any one like yourself, and
then you will never be disturbed by either sleeping or waking
fancies, but you will live like a God among men ; for a man
living amid immortal Gods, is in no respect like a mortal
being."
In other works, he discards divination ; and also in bis
Little Epitome. And he says divination has no existence :
--.n^
EPICUBtTS* 478
but, if it has any, still we should think that what happens
according to it is nothing to us.
These are his sentiments ahout the things which concern
the life of man, and he has discussed them at greater length
elsewhere.
XXVIII. Now, he diEFers with the Oyrenaics about pleasure.
For they do not admit that to be pleasure which exists as a
condition, but place it wholly in motion. He, however, admits
both kinds to be pleasure, namely, that of the soul, and that
of the body, as he says in his treatise on Choice and Avoid-
ance ; and also in his work on the Chief Good ; and in the
first book of his treatise on Lives, and in his Letter against
the Mitylenian Philosophers. And in the same spirit, Dioge-
nes, in the seventeenth book of his Select Discourses, and
Metrodorus, in his Timocrates, speak thus. ** But when
pleasure is understood, I mean both that which exists in
motion, and that which is a state . . . ." And Epicurus,
in his treatise on Choice, speaks thus : ** Now, freedom from
disquietude, and freedom from pain, are states of pleasure ;
but joy and cheerfulness are beheld in motion and energy."
XXIX. For they make out the pains of the body to be
worse than those of the mind ; accordingly, those who do
wrong, are pimished in the body. But he considers the pains
of the soul the worst ; for that the flesh is only sensible to
present affliction, but the soul feels the past, the present, and
the future. Therefore, in the same manner, he contends that
the pleasures of the soul are greater than those of the body ;
and he uses as a proof that pleasure is the chief good, the fact
that all animals &om the moment of their birth are delighted
with pleasure, and are offended with pain by their natural
instinct, and without the employment of reason. Therefore,
too, we, of our own inclination, flee from pain ; so that
Hercules, when- devoured by his poisoned tunic, cries out : —
Shoutmg and groaning, and the rocks around
Be-eohoed his sad waHs, the mountain heights
Of Locrian lands, and sad Eubsea's hills.*
XXX. And we choose the virtues for the sake of pleasure,
and not on their own account ; just as we seek the skill of
the physician for the sake of health, as Diogenes says, in the
* From the Traohinie of Sophodes, 1784.
7
474 liYBS OF EinNENT PHILOSOPHERS.
twentieth book of his Select Discourses, where he also calls
virtue a way of passiag one^s life {hiwyw^ii). But !Epicurus
says, that virtue alone is inseparable from pleasure, but that
eveiy thing else may be separated from it as mortal.
XXXI. Let us, however, now add the finishing stroke, as
one may say, to this whole treatise, and to the life of the
philosopher; giving some of his fundamental maxims, and
closing the whole work with them, taking that for our end
which is the beginning of happiness.
1. *' That which is happy and imperishable, neither has
trouble itself, nor does it cause it to anything ; so that it is
not subject to the feelings of either anger or gratitude ; for
these feelings only exist in what is weak.
(In other passages he says that the Gods are speculated on
by reason, some existing according to number, aud others
according to some similarity of form, arising from the con-
tinual flowing on of similar images, perfecte4 for this very
purpose in human form.)
2. " Death is nothing to us ; for that which is dissolved is
devoid of sensation, and that which is devoid of sensation is
uotiiing to us.
3. " The limit -of the greatness of the pleasures is the
removal of everything which can give pain. And where
pleasure is, as long as it lasts, that which gives pain, or that
which feels pain, or both of them, are absent.
4. '' Pain does not abide continuously in the flesh, but in
its extremity it is present only a very short time. That pain
which only just exceeds the pleasure in the flesh, does not
last many days. But long diseases have in them more that is
pleasant than painful to the flesh.
6. ** It is not possible to Uve pleasandy without living
prudently, and honourably, and justiy ; nor to live prudently,
and honourably, and justly, without living pleasantly. But he
to whom it does not happen to live prudentiy, honourably, and
justiy, cannot possibly Hve pleasantiy.
6. '' For the sake of feeling confldence and security with
regard to men, and not with reference to the nature of govern-
ment and kingly power being a good, some men have wished
to be eminent and powerful, in order that others might attain
this feeling by their means ; thinking that so they would secure
safety as £u: as men are concerned* So that, if the life of
BPICUBUS 476
such men- is safe, they have attained to the nature of good ;
but if it is not safe, then they have fedled in obtaining that for
the sake of which they originally desired power according to
the order of nature.*
7. ** No pleasure is intrinsically bad : but the efficient
causes of some pleasures bring with them a great many per-
turbations of pleasure.
8. "If every pleasure were condensed, if one may so say,
and if each lasted long, and affected the whole body, or the
essential parts of it, then there would be no difference between
one pleasure and another.
9. ''If those things which make the pleasures of debauched
men, put an end to &e fears of the mind, and to those which
arise about the heavenly bodies, and death, and pain ; and if
they taught us what ought to be the limit of our desires, we
should have no pretence for blaming those who wholly devote
themselves to pleasure, and who never feel any pain or grief
(which is the chief evil) from any quarter.
10. " If apprehensions relating to the heavenly bodies did
not disturb us, and if the terrors of death have no concern
vdth us, and if we had the courage to contemplate the bounda-
ries of pain and of the desires, we should have no need of
physiological studies.
11. *' It would not be possible for a person to banish all
fear about those things which are called most essential, unless
he knew what is the nature of the universe, or if he had any
idea that the fables told about it could be true ; and therefore,
it is, that a person cannot ei\joy unmixed pleasure without
physiological knowledge.
12. *' It would be no good for a man to secure himself
safety as far as men are concerned, while in a state of appre-
hension as to all the heavenly bodies, and those under the
earth, and in short, all those in the infinite.
13. Irresistible power and great wealth may, up to a certain
point, give us security as &r as men are concerned ; but the
security of men in general depends upon the tranquillity of
their souls, and their freedom from ambition.
* There is some bopeless corruption in the text here. Kor has any
one succeeded in making it intelligible. The French translator divides
it into two maxims.
47 A IiIVBS OF EBONSNT PHTLOSOPHEBS.
14. ** The riches of nature are defined and easily procur-
able ; but vain desires are insatiable.
16. " The wise man is but little fiayoured hj fortune ; but
his reason procures him the greatest and most valuable goods,
and these he does ei^oj, and will enjoy the whole of his life.
16. " The just man is ,the freest of all men from dis-
quietude ; but the unjust man is a perpetual prey to it.
17. *' Pleasure in the flesh is not increased, when once the
pain arising from want is removed ; it is on]y diversified.
18* ** The most perfect happiness of the soul depends on
these reflections, and on opinions of a similar character on ail
those questions which cause the greatest alarm to the mind.
19. *' Infinite and finite time both have equal pleasure,
if any one measures its limits bj reason.
20. " If ^the flesh could experience boundless pleasure, it
would want to dispose of eternity.*
21 '* But reason, enabling us to conceive the end and
dissolution of the body, and liberating us from the fears
relative to eternity, procures for us all the happiness of which
life is capable, so completely that we have no further occasion
to include eternity in our desires. In this disposition of
mind, man is happy even when his troubles engage him to
quit life ; and to die thus, is for him only to interrupt a life
of happiness.
22. " He who is acquainted with the limits of life knows,
that that which removes the pain which arises from want, and
which makes the whole of life perfect, is easily procurable ; so
that be has no need of those things which can only be attained
. with trouble.
23. *' But as to the subsisting end, we ought to consider it
with all the clearness and evidence which we refer to whatever
we think and believe; otherwise, all things will be full of
confusion and uncertainty of judgment.
24. " If you resist all the senses, you will not even have
anything left to which you can refer, or by which you may be
able to judge of the falsehood of the senses which you con-
demn.
26. '* If you simply discard one sense, and do not distinguish
between the diflierent elements of the judgment, so as to know
* There in Bome great corruption hers again. The FVencb translator
takes 19, 20, and 21 all as one.
BPICUBUS. 477
on the one hand, the induction which goes bejond the actual
sensation, or, on the other, the actual and immediate notion ;
the affections, and all the conceptions of the mind which lean
directly on the sensible representation, you will be imputing
trouble into the other sense, and destroying in that quarter
eveiy species of criterion.
26. " If you allow equal authority to the ideas, which,
being only inductive, require to be verifiied, and to those
which bear about them an immediate certainty, you wiU not
escape error; for you will be confounding doubtM opinions
with those which are not doubtful, and true judgments with
those of a different character.
27. " If, on every occasion, we do not refer «very one of
our actions to the chief end of nature, if we turn aside from
that to seek ox avoid some other object, there will be a want
of agreement between our words and our actions.
28. ^* Of all the things which wisdom provides for the hap-
piness of the whole life, by fiax the most important is the
acquisition of friendship.
29. ** The same opinion encourages man to trust that no
evil will be everlasting, or even of long duration ; as it sees
that, in the space of life allotted to us, the protection of friend-
ship is most sure and trustworthy.
80. *' Of the desires, some are natural and necessary, some
natural, but not necessary, and some are neither natural nor
necessary, but owe their existence to. vain opinions.
(Epicurus thinks that those are natural and necessaiy which
put an end to pains, as drink when one is thirsty ; and that
those are natural but not necessary which only diversify plea-
sure, but do not remove pain, such as expensive food; and
that these are neither natural nor necessary, which are such
as crowns, or the erection of statues.)
31. ** Those desires which do not lead to pain, if they are not
satisfied, are not necessary. It is easy to impose silence on
them when they appear difficult to gratify, or likely to produce
injury.
32. " When the natural desires, the failing to satisfy which
is, nevertheless, not painful, are violent and obstinate, it is a
proof that there is an admixture of vain opinion in them ; for
then energy does not arise from their own nature, but from the
vain opinions of men.
478 LIYBS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.
83. " Natural justice is a covenant of what is suitable, lead-
ing men to avoid injuring one another, and heing injured.
34. '* Those animals which are unable to enter into an argu-
ment of this nature, or to guard against doing or sustaining
mutual injury, have no such ^ing as justice or injustice. And
the case is the same with those nations, the members of which
are either unwilling or unable to enter into a covenant to
respect their mutual interests.
35. " Justice has no independent existence ; it results from
mutual contracts, and establishes itself wherever there is a
mutual engagement to guard against doing or sustaining ma-
tual injury.
36. " Injustice is not intrinsically bad ; it has this character
only because there is joined with it a fear of not escapiilg those
who are appointed to punish actions marked with that cha-
racter.
37. " It is not possible for a man who secretly does anything
in contravention of the agreement which men have made with
one another, to guard against doing, or sustaining mutual
injury, to believe that he shall always escape notice, even if
he have escaped notice already ten tibousand times j for, till
las death, it is uncertain whether he will not be detected.
38. " In a general point of view, justice is the same thing to
every one; for there is something advantageous in mutual
society. Nevertheless, the difference of place, and divers other
circumstances, make justice vaiy*
39. " From the moment that a thing declared just by the
law is generally recognized as useful for the mutual relations
of men, it becomes really just, whether it is universally re-
garded as such or not.
40. ** But if, on the contrary, a thing established by law is
not really useful for the social relations, then it is not just;
and if tl^t which was just» inasmuch as it was useful, loses this
character, after having been for some time considered so, it is
not less true that, during that time, it was really just, at least
for those who do not perplex themselves about vain words, but
who prefer, in every case, examining and judging for them-
selves.
41. " When, without any fresh circumstances ansing, a
thing which has been declared just in practice does not agree
with the impressions of reason, that is a proof that the thiqg
EPICURUS. 479^
was not really just. In the same way, when in consequence
of new circumstances, a thing which has been pronounced just
does not any longer appear to agree with utility, the thing
which was just, inasmuch as it was useful to the social rela-
tions and intercourse of mankind, ceases to be just the moment
when it ceases to be useful.
42. "He who desires to live tranquilly without having any
thing to fear from other men, ought to make himself friends ;
those whom he cannot make friends of, he should, at least,
avoid rendering enemies ; and if that is not in his power, he
should, as far as possible, avoid all intercourse with them, and
keep them aloof, as far as it is for his interest to do so.
43. " The happiest men are they who have arrived at the
point of having nothing to fear from those who surround them,
ouch men live with one another most agreeably, having the
£biuest grounds of confidence in one another, enjoying the ad-
vantages of friendship in all their fulness, and not lamenting,
as a pitiable circumstance, the premature death of their
friends."
U)NDOH :
J. HADBOV AJTD tOH, PRINTBSS, CABTU BTBXn, iHSBlTaT.
INDEX.
*«* The Roman numerals refer to the sections, the Arabic figures to the pages.
-^CHINES, a rhetorician, vii. 80.
calamniated, iii. 79.
lectured at Athens, iv. 80.
son of a sausage seller, i. 79.
Alemjson, Crotona, his view of the
soul, 371.
ANAOHABfiis, inventions of, ii, 48.
letter to Croesus, 49.
received by Solon, iii. 47.
return. to Scythia, iv. 47.
sayings of, v. 47.
one of the wise, 46.
Anaxagoras, called Mind, i. 59.
epigrams on, 5. 62.
first prose writer, viii. 61.
opinions of, iii. 59.
prosecuted for impiety, ix. 61.
Anaxarohus, called Happy, iii. 401.
intimate with Alexander, 400.
Nicocreon, his enemy, 401.
Anaxtmander, the astronomer, 57.
AnaximeiNbs, lettera to Pythagoras,
58.
Antisthenbs, doctrines of, v. 220.
founds a manly Stoic school, viii.
221.
love of life, x. 223.
pupil of Gorgias, ii. 217.
sayingsof, iv. 218.
writings of, ix. 222.
Arossilaus, a favourite of Eumenes
and Hierocles, xiv. 168.
an admirer of Plato, viii. 165.
Arcesilaus, a poet.'iv. 1 64.
axiomatic and free-spoken, x.
165.
death from excess, x. 170.
disliked talkativeness, 166.
founder of the Middle Academy,
ii. 163.
goes to Grantor, iii. 163.
letter to Thaumasias, xix. 170.
liberal with money, xiii. 167.
vices of, xvi. 168.
Archelaus, 62.
a natural philosopher, ii. 62.
opinions on heat and cold, &c.
iii. 63.
■ production of ani-
mals, iii. 63,
Arohtt AS, general at Tarentum, 369.
letter to Plato and reply, iv. 369.
mathematician, vii. 370.
Aristippus, a favourite of Dionyaius,
iii. 81.
opinions of, on pain and pleasure,
90.
retorts, iv. 82.
school of philosophy, viii, 89,
sycophancy, iv. 82.
teaches for money, ii. 81,
wealth, iv. 82.
writings, vi. 88.
Ariston, the bald, called Soion, i.
318.
an eloquent philosopher, vi. 319.
his writings, vii. 319.
Aristotle, apophthegms, xi. 187.
I I
482
INDEX.
Aristotle, death from poison, Tii. 182.
hymn to Hermias, 183.
leaves Plato, iv. 181.
lived in Philip's court, vi. 182.
opinions, criterion of truth, 192.
friendship, 192.
God, 193.
philosophy, 191.
Plato's most eminent pupil, ii.
181.
peripatetic, why bo called, iv.
181.
scheme for early waking, x. 186.
school at Athens, vii. 182.
will of, ix. 185.
writings, many, xii. 189.
Amicereans, their opinions, x. 92.
Bias, the wise, 38.
declines the tripod, i. 38.
death of, in court, iv. 39.
eloquent and just as a lawyer,
ui. 39.
a poet, V. 39.
sayings of, v. 39.
stratagem to save Priam, his
native city, ii. 39.
BiON, apophthegms of, iii. 172.
change of schools, iv. 173.
fear of death, x. 176.
fond of theatre, v. 174.
poverty of, i. 171.
selfishness of, ix. 174.
Cabneades, his letters, viii. 178
well read in Stoic lore, ii. 177.
industry of, iii. 178.
his fear of death, vii. 178.
Cebss, the Thehan, 105.
Charondas, account of, note, 345.
Clido, the wise one of, 32.
brief in speech, v. 34.
death of, through joy, v. 34.
letter to Periander, v. 34,
opinion as to Cythera, iv. 33.
saying about suretyship, v. 34.
sayings of, ii. 33.
Chaysippus, his abilities, iL 327.
his books, xii. 331.
his industry, iii. 328.
his questions, xi. 330.
a pupil of Cleanthes, i. 327.
his self-esteem, iv. 329.
said to be an indecent frriter,iii.
331.
Cleanthes, a boxer, 322.
books of, ii. 325.
called an ass, iv. 323.
poor and industrious, ii. 322.
slow of intellect, iii. 323.
starved himself, vii. 326.
wrote on oyster shells, &c. for
want of paper, iv. 323.
Cleobulus, one of the wise men, 41-
apophth^pns of, iv. 42.
letter to Solon, vi 43.
Clitomachus, disciple and successor
of Carneades, 179.
G&ANTOR. a poet, vi. 162.
a pupil of Polemo, iii. 161.
retires to temple of i£sculapius,
iv. 161.
Crates, a pupil of Polemo, 160.
lived with Grantor, iii. 160.
writings of, and disciples, iv. 161-
Crates, a Theban cynic, 249.
his disposal of property, iv. 2jO-
his jesting with death, x. 252.
his indifference to public opinio^
viii. 252.
his sayings, ix. 282.
Ceito, the Athenian, 103.
Cynics, doctrines of, iii. 257.
discard liberal studies, 257.
prefer ethics to logic, 257.
simplicity in living, 258.
virtue, the chief good, 258.
may be taught, 258.
Cyrenaics, a sect of the school of
Arisiippus, viii. 89.
Demetrius, governor of Athens, «•
209.
honoured and envied, viii. 209.
INDEX.
483
Demetrius, his reported blindness and
restoration of sight, vii. 209.
statues erected to him, ii. ^^09.
sayings of, x. 211.
writings of, ix. 210.
Democsitus, pupil of the magi, 390.
death, xi. 390.
disregard of glory, v. 391.
of wealth, vii. 392.
doctrines of, xii. 394.
lowly life, vii. 392.
Plato's dislike of him, viii. 393.
sagacity, stories of, x. 394.
writings of, xiii. 395.
Dialectics, the Stoics' doctrine of,
XXXV. 276.
Diogenes, accounts of his death,
xi. 246. •
anecdotes of him, vi. 228.
cynical sayings, 226.
lived in a cask, 225.
money changer, 224.
corrupted by him, i. 224.
neglect of music, vii. 245.
persuader, a skilful, x. 245.
poverty of, reconciled to, iii. 224.
pride and haughtiness of, iv. 225.
pupil of Antisthenes, ii. 224.
sold as a slave, ix. 245.
writings of, xii. 247.
Diogenes of Apollonia, 400.
his chief doctrines, ii. 400.
DioNYSius, a pupil of Zeno, 321.
writings of, v. 321.
Druids, account of, note 3.
Egyptian philosophy, vii. 9.
Empedoclbs, accused of pride, xi.
366.
doctrines of, xii. 368.
inventor of rhetoric, iii. 361.
liberality of, ix. 363.
pacifies the Arigentines, xi. 366.
political career, ix. 363.
retires to Peloponnesus, x. 364.
story of his wonder working, xi
365.
Empedocles, why called, wind-for
bidder, v. 362.
Epicharmus, -inscription on his statue,
368.
Epicurus, an Athenian, 424.
his character, v. 427.
criteria of trirth, 435.
said to be debauched, iii. 426.
rejected dialectics, 435.
Diotimus, a Stoic, opposes him,
iii. 425.
doctrines, his, on affections, 447.
atoms, 439.
clouds,thunder,
&c. 460.
men, 467.
comets, 464.
faults among
■ forms and attri-
■ grief, 467.
, heaven's phe- ,
nomena, 452, 458.
injuries among
butee, 449.
men, 466.
461.
meteorological,
opinion and
supposition, 436.
passions, plea-
sure, and pain, 436.
— pleasure, 471,
473.
things, 441.
production of
451.
-self-production,
sophy, 468.
stars, 464.
study of philo-
universe, 439.
flattered Mithras, iii. 425.
fundamental maxims of, xxxi.
474.
letter of, to Herodotus , xxiv.436
— — — Menseceus, xxvii
468.
I
Pythocles, xxv.
455.
manner of his death, ix. 429.
plain language, his, viii. 428.
pupils, biS) xi. 431.
484
INDEX
Epicuros, virtue, why to be chofleD,
vqXxx. 473.
luminous writings, xvii. 483.
Willy his last, X. 429.
writings on natural philoflophy,
iv. 426.
youthful student, a, ix. 429.
Epim ENiDES, one of the wise men, 50.
bmlt a temple at Athens, vi. 52.
honoured as a deity, xi. 53.
letter to Solon, ix. 52.
long life, his, story of, iV; 51 .
long sleep, his, story of, ii. 50.
poems, and other writings, v. 51.
stays the plague at Athens, iii.
51.
Ethical philosophy, what, xiii. 12.
subdivisions, xiii. 12.
EucLTDjES, his followers, iv. 97.
opinions, ii. 97.
protector of Socrates^ i. 97.
EifDOXUs, astronomer, geometrician,
and lawgiver, 373.
inventor of theory of crooked
lines, vi. 374.
writings of, iii. 373.
Fate, Stoics' view of, Ixxiv. 318.
GynosophistsB, what and who, i. 3.
God, Stoics' view of, Ixxii. 312.
H^esiaci, a sect of the school of
Aristippus, their opinions, ix.
♦91.
Hbraclidbs, a Peripatetic, Pytha-
gorean, and Platonist, by turns,
u. 213.
remarkable attempt to deceive
at his death, ii. 215.
sumamed Pompicus from his
dress and size, iii. 213.
writings of, iv. 213.
HsaACLirns, book on natture, v. 377.
epigrams on him, xii. 381.
esteemed by Darius Uystaspes,
letters between them, ix. 380.
lofty and arrogant, 376.
misanthropic, iii. 376. _„_,
HvPABCHiA, a female philoaopber,
in love with Crates the Cynic,
254.
Her contest with Theodoras, m.
255.
HxpPASvs, a disciple of Pythagoras,
371.
Ionian school of philoaophy, x. 10.
Italian school of philosophy, x. 10.
"Know thyself," the apophthegm,
xiii. 21.
Lactdbs, founder of the New Aca-
demy, i. 176.
his death from excess, vi. 177.
his industry, ii. 176.
Leucippus, his chief doctrine8> ii. 388.
pupil of Zentithe Eleatic, 388.
Ltoon, an eloquent instructor oi
youth, i. 205.
delicacy in dress, iii. 206.
fiivourite of Eumenes and Atta
lus, iv. 206.
his will, ix. 206.
Magi, what and who, note, 3.
Mklissus, his doctrine of universe, 38S.
Menedemus, his banquets, xv. HO.
his character, vi. 107.
his death, xviii. 112.
despised Plato, &c., xi. 109.
disciple of Phsedo, 105.
endangered by his free speech,
iv. 107. „
friend of Antigonus, xvil Ul ^
invention and readiness, ^xn.
109.
regardlessness of appearance^
V. 107.
severe and rigid, iii. 106.
sent to Megara, but deserts, ii.
105.
thought highly of by his country-
men, xvi. 111.
Mbnedemtis, a superstitious Cynic,
267.
Mbnippus, a Cynic, 253.
hangs himself, iii. 256.
INDEX.
485
Menippus, writer of low ridicule^.266.
writings, vi. 256.
Mbtroclks, pupil of Crates the Cynic,
253.,
destroys himself, 254.
Mind, Stoics, doctrine of, Ixxiii. 299.
* . '
MoNiMUS. feigned madness, i. 248.
a pupil of Diogenes, 248.
Mtson, one of the wise men, 49.
Natulal philosophy, what so called,
xiii. ] 1.
Stoics' account of, Ixvii. 307.
Obphbus, not a philosopher, iv. 7.
On^icritus, a pupil of Diogenes,
249.
Parmenides, first |to speak of the^
earth as a sphere, ii. 384.
philosophized in poems, iii. 385.
Periandeb, one of the wise men, his
domesLic crimes, 43.
his letter to Procles, viii. 46.
- to the wise men, vii.
46.
from Thrasybulus, ix.
46.
sayings of, v. 45.
wish to conceal his grave, iii. 44.
Fh^do, founder of the Eliac school,
96.
Fherecydes, one of the wise men,
53.
epigrams on, vii. 55.
first writer on natural philo-
sophy, ii. 54.
grave of, at Ephesus, iv. 54.
letter to Theales, viii. 56.
makes a sun-dial, vi. 55.
Philolaus, a pupil of Pythagoras,
372.
aims at regal power, ii. 372.
book, his one, iv. 372.
first to describe the earth's move-
ment in a circle, iii. 372.
Philosophers, names of their sects,
xiL 11.
who did not write, xi. 11.
Philosophy, arose among Greeks,
iii. 6.
Philosophy, divisions of, xiii. X 1 .
earliest study of, i. 3.
two schools of, X. 10.
various kinds of, xi. 11.
PisiSTRATUs, his letter to Solon,
vi. 20.
PiTTACUS, one of the wise men, 35.
advice about marrying, viii. 37.
death of, vi. 36.
forbearance of, iii. 35.
a general and soldier, i. 35.
honoured by his country, ii. 35.
lameness of, ix. 38.
letter to Croesus, x. 38.
a poet, V. 36.
sayings of, iv. 36.
Plato, academy, his, ix. 115.
account of his opinions, by
Aldnus, 117.
aided by Epicharmus, a comic
poet, xii. 116.
attachments, xxiii. 123.
to writings of So-
phron, 119.
birth an^ early abode, ii. 113.
danger from Dionysius, xv. 120.
defends Cbabrias, xviii. 121.
descent of, i. 113.
dialogues of, xxxv. 133. •
disciples of, xxxi. 129.
disliked Aristippus, 126.
disliked by Xenophon, xxiv.
125.
education, his, v. 114.
epigrams on his tomb, 128.
epistles, his, xxxvi. 134.
marks in his books, xxxix. 136.
method of his argument, xxxii.
129.
opinions on arts, beauty, 144.
beneficence, 146.
contraries, 149.
discourse, 143.
entities divisible and undivisible,
150.
.^— - independent and relative,
150.
end of afiairs, 146.
firiendships, 141.
God and matter, 137.
good and evil, i 40.
486
IKDEX.
Plato, good counsel, 150.
good laws and lawlessness, 148.
the good, 148.
good things, 149.
happiness, 147.
justice, 142.
knowledge, 142.
law, 143.
medical science, 143.
music, 143.
noble birth, 144.
philanthropy, 147.
* political constitutions, 141.
power, 147.
rhetoric, 146.
rule, 145.
« the soul, 144.
things existing, 148.
virtue perfect, 144.
voice, 150.
opinions on his writings, xxv. 126.
refuses appointments from Ar-
cadia and Thebes, xvii. 121.
ridiculed, xxii. 121.
Socrates' dream of him, vii. 114.
system, his, made difficult on
purpose, xxxviii. 135.
theory of ideas, 118.
valiant soldier, s, x. 115.
visits Sicily, volcanoes, xiv. 119.
what he taught, xix. 122.
where he first taught, viii. 114.
wi]l« his last. xxx. 127.
PoLEMO, his calmness, iv. 158.
epigram, viii. 160.
fond of Sophocles, vii. 159.
imitated Xenocrates, vi. 159.
intemperate and profligate, 158.
much honoured, iv. 158.
rigorous system of morals, iv. 158.
PoTAMo and his school, xlv. 13.
Potter's wheel, invented byAnacharsis,
viii. 48.
Protaoobas, method of arguing, his,
iii. 397.
taught at a fixed price, 398.
works, his, v. 398.
wrecked in his way to Sicily, vii.
399.
PtBKHo, originally a painter, 402.
account of him, bj Antigoou:
402.
arguing, ten modes of, ix. 409.
arguing, five others added bv
Agrippa, X. 412.
attached to Anaxarchus, ii. 402.
certainty not attainable, 414.
disciples, vii 405.
called Sceptics from tbei'
doubting every thing, viii 40:
eloquent, 403.
fortitude and economy, vi. 404.
good, natural, or natural ey:..
none, 417.
honoured by his country, 403.
impassiveness, vi. 404.
learning, no such thing, 417.
left no writings, 418.
motion, none, 417.
production, none, 417.
signs, invisible of visible thin;?.
416.
signs, visible of visible thiit^
none, 415.
system learned from his disciples.
418.
travelled to India, 402.
Ptthaoosas, accounted a son o!
Mercury, iv. 339.
his works, v. 340 .
community of property with
friends, viii. 342.
division of life, vii. 342.
doctrine of monads, xix. 348.
founder of Italian philosophy, i
338.
geometrician, xi. 342.
greatly admired, xv. 342.
initiated into mysteries, iii. 338.
introduced weights and measure
to Greece, xiii. 344.
letter to Anaximenes, xxvi. 358.
manner of his death, xxl 354.
opinions on nature, xix. 349.
practised divination, zyiii. 346.
precepts, vi. 341.
■■ — as to worship, xix. 347.
prohibition as to food, xviii. 34&
ridiculed by Timon, xv. 353.
INDEX.
487
Pythagora8, symbols, his, xvii. 346.
wife and son, xxii. 355.
worship of Apollo, xiL 343.
Scliools of philosophy, xiii. 12.
Seven wise men, the, xiv. 21.
SiMlAS, the Theban, 105.
Simon, the Athenian leather cutter,
104.
Socrates, an artificer, 64.
character, his, viii. ^6.
contests, his, xxv. 74. •
counsels and sayings, xvi. 69.
daemon warnings, xvi. 69.
executed for opinion;!, the first
philosopher who was, v. 64.
lamented by the Athenians,
xxiii. 73.
perauasive power, xii. 68.
ransoms Phaedo, and teaches him
philosophy, xiv. 68.
school, his, xxvi. 74.
saves Xenophon's life, vii. 65.
serves in Xenophon's array, vii.
65.
shives, would not have, xiii. 68.
wives, his, xvii. 70.
Solon, the wise, life of, 23.
apophthegms, his, xvi. 30.
counsels, iiis, xii. 29.
death of, xv. 29.
escapes from Athens, iv. 25.
excites Athens against Salamis,
ii. 33.
inscription on his statue, xv. 29.
laws as to debts, i. 23.
laws, vii. 26.
letter to Crcesus, xx. 52.
— Epimenides, xviii. 30.
Periander, xvii. 30.
Pisistratus, xix. 31.
means of preventing' injustice,
X. 28.
opposes Pisistratus, iii. 24.
poems, his, xiii. 29.
taught time by moon, xi. 28.
Speusippus, a basket-maker, vL 152.
commentaries, his, xi. 153.
passionate and voluptuous, 152.
Speusippus, Plato's successor, 152.
puts an end to his life, ix. 153.
SpiiiEBUS, at Alexandria, 326.
his books, iii. 327.
Stars, Stoics,^ doctrine of, Ixxi. 311.
Stilpo, his acuteness, ii. 1.00.
bis dialogues, viii. 102.
his end, x. 103.
opinions on statues, v. 101.
politician, a, iii. 100.
rejects theory of species, vii. 102.
his siiQplicity, vi. 101.
visits Ptolemy Soter, iv. 101.
Stoics, doctrines of, xxxiii. 274.
Stbato, the natural philosopher, ii.
202.
Ptolemy Philadelphus, his pupil,
iii. 202.
successor of Theophrastus, 202.
will, his last, vii. 203.
writings, his, iv. 203.
Thales, the wise, astronomical sci-
ence studied and taught by
him, ii. 14.
death of, xii. 20.
' letter to Pherecydes, xv. 22.
Solon, xvi. 22. ■
sayings of, ix. 18.
star-gazing and falling into 'the
ditch, viii. 18.
tripod awarded to him, vii. 16.
views of the soul, his, iii. 15.
Tbeodoreans, their opinions, xi. 93. ^
Theodorus, a disciple of Aristippus.
XV. 94.
banished for his opinions, xvi.
95.
Theophrastus, Aristotle's pupil and
friend, 194.
character of, iv. 194.
name, symbolic, vi. 1 95.
will, his last, xiv. 200.
writings, his, xiii. 196.
Thesmopheria, what, note, 394.
TiMON, of Phliasif*, 420.
acuteness of, ii. 422.
delighted in a garden, v. 422. .
488
INDEX.
Tlinon, fond of drinking, iL 421.
a jester, vi. 422.
his pupils, vii. 423.
Virtue and vice, Stoics' doctrine of,
IxT. 304.
Water, the principle of all things, vi.
15.
Wise man, the Stoics', Ixiv. 301.
Wise men, the, who, ix. 10.
Xbmocrates, accidental death, xii.
167.
a grave and solemn man, iii. 164.
hahit of meditation, viii. 166.
kind to a sparrow, vi, 156p
pupil of Plato, 164.
self-denial of, v. 166.
sold for his taxes, x. 167.
writings, his, ix. 166.
Xbnophanbb, banished, 382.
buried his sons with his own
hands, iv. 384,
doctrines, his, iii. 383.
wrote poems, iii. 383.
Xenophon, banished by the Athe-
nians, vii. 76.
called the Attic muse, xiv. 78.
conduct on death of his son, x.
77.
escape to Corinth, ix. 77.
first writer of memorabilia, iii.
76.
follower of Socrates, ii, 76.
Xenophon, friend of Cyrus, v. 75.
love of Clinias, iv. 76.
writings, his, xiii 78.
Zalbn BUS, account of, note, 345.
Zend, the Stoic, his abstmence, &c.,
xxiiL 269.
admires Diodorus, xx. 266.
anecdotes of him, xix. 266.
Antigonus respects him, viii. 261.
Athenians crown him, ix. 263.
disciples and works, xxxi 273.
doctrines, xxxiL 273.
kills himself, xxvL 270.
lectures in the Stoa or porch.
vii. 261.
manner of reproving, xix. 265.
personal appearance, ii. 259.
pupil of Crates, iii. 269.
retiring disposition, xv. 264.
republic, his, xxviii. 271.
turn for investigation, xvii. 264.
his vices, xiii. 263.
writes about duty, xxL 269.
writings, iv. 260.
Zeno, the Eleatic, adopted son of
Parmenides, 386.
arrested for treason against Kear-
chefl, V. 387.
chief doetrinesjr.viii. 388.
invented dialectics, iv. 387.
pounded to death in a mortar,
V. 387.
ZoROjiSTEfi, his philosophy, notey 5.
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